
Glass. 
Book- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



FIRS1 GCrY # 





DUDLEY CASTLE (.Page b) 



THE LIFE AND WORK OF 
THOMAS DUDLEY 

THE SECOND GOVERNOR OF 
MASSACHUSETTS 



BY 



AUGUSTINE JONES, A.M., LL.B. 

MEMBER OF THE RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE NEW ENGLAND 
HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(3Tfie Riotmbt #retf& 4TamfcrtHge 

1899 



<^(A 






COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY AUGUSTINE JONES 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




ow^AH, 



To 

The Honorable Thomas B. Reed, ll. d. 

Whose illustrious career, in a more conspicuous public service, 
distinguished for patriotism, foresight, and wisdom, is in striking 
accord with that of him whose personal history at the beginning 
of the Republic is here delineated, this work is inscribed by 
his sincere friend and classmate, 

AUGUSTINE JONES. 



PREFACE 

This Life of Governor Thomas Dudley has been written, 
especially so far as it pertains to Massachusetts, upon the 
authority of the public records, while the earlier portion, 
describing his career in England, has been produced chiefly 
from the literature which appeared immediately after his 
time. 

We have not overlooked those writers who, during more 
than two centuries, have recorded with great unanimity their 
opinions respecting the bigotry of Dudley. 

We indulge the hope that the thoughtful reader will con- 
clude with us that an injustice has been done to the memory 
of an excellent man, who cordially welcomed truth from 
every source. 

Dean Stanley has truly said, " Every one is familiar with 
the reversal of popular judgments respecting individuals or 
events of our own time. It would be an easy, though per- 
haps an invidious task, to point out the changes from oblo- 
quy to applause." J 

Our explanation of the adverse opinions and offensive 
epithets applied to Dudley is well expressed by the poet 
Prior. 2 

Dudley was as liberal in religion and politics as the public 

1 Hist. Mem. Canterbury, by A. P. Stanley, 59. 

2 " Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em, 

And oft repeating they believe 'em." 

(Alma, iii. Canto 30.) 



vi PREFACE 

sentiment of his age allowed, and nothing beyond this can 
be required. He was not then regarded as intolerant, and 
the judgment of his neighbors and peers is the only reason- 
able one. 

The difficulties of our undertaking are set forth so fully 
in the first chapter that it is not essential to enlarge upon 
them here. The Puritanic quality of our theme has led us 
into some digression, in search for the social life in the midst 
of which Puritanism flourished. 

It is said that Cromwell possessed a " massive stature ; 
big, massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect ; wart above 
the right eyebrow ; nose of considerable blunt-aquiline pro- 
portions," * and that when a limner attempted to improve on 
nature in painting his portrait, he impatiently exclaimed, 
" Paint me as I am." 

Thomas Dudley had the same unaffected, rugged char- 
acter. He would say to us if he could, " I lived and acted 
regardless of praise or blame. I appeal from the unfair and 
incomplete judgments of biased men, to that unerring judge 
who knew my motives, inspired and led me in life. I ask 
neither apologies nor explanations respecting my life work. 
But if I am to be painted, ' paint me as I am,' for I say with 
Othello, ' Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, nor set 
down aught in malice.' " 

The aim of the author has not been chiefly vindication, 
but to present the notable career of an eminent founder of 
New England, a public servant whose honest, healthful 
methods in public life are at present worthy of imitation. 
We must return with all possible speed to the same faithful, 
intelligent administration of the affairs of state which dis- 
tinguished Dudley, to protect ourselves from great evils and 

1 Carlyle's Speeches and Letters of Cromwell, ii. 287. 



PREFACE vii 

political corruptions, which at present menace our institu- 
tions. 

Mr. Moses Coit Tyler says : " Doubtless we shall be 
ready to say with Nathaniel Hawthorne : ' Let us thank God 
for having given us such ancestors ; and let each successive 
generation thank him not less fervently for being one step 
removed further from them in the march of ages.' " 

Human progress in recent centuries has been sufficient to 
awaken the gratitude of thoughtful men for having been 
born into modern society with its light and culture. 

A few hundred years later our descendants will be com- 
miserating us on the intolerable evils of society in our day. 
They will also bring us into comparison with themselves, 
pluming themselves over our records, deriding our inhuman- 
ity to man, our cruelty to animals, and entertaining them- 
selves with our antique foolishness. We shall be fortunate 
if our service to the world, with a perspective of as many 
years, is as creditable under examination as that of the Puri- 
tan founders of New England. 

We heartily approve of the first clause of the quotation, 
" Let us thank God for such ancestors." We neither adopt 
all of their theology nor all of their practices. We have a 
similar hesitancy respecting some of the teachings of Moses, 
the great lawgiver of antiquity. Both the Puritans and that 
eminent Hebrew were lights in the world in the greatest of 
all concernments, and are to be judged in the wisdom and 
intelligence of their respective periods and environments. 
The fundamental truth of all pure religions, indeed of the 
universal religion itself, which was proclaimed to the Samari- 
tan woman at Jacob's well, was the groundwork, enduring 
and life-giving, of both manifestations of truth. 1 

1 The family of Thomas Dudley was undoubtedly more important in 



viii PREFACE 

We tender our grateful acknowledgments to the Governor 
Thomas Dudley Association of Boston, Mass., for their im- 
portant assistance in this undertaking. 

We are greatly indebted to the valuable " History of the 
Dudley Family," by Dean Dudley, Esq., and also to the 
invaluable services of Caroline Rathbone Jones, whose ear- 
nest labors have entered into this work with unfaltering 
energy. 

the affairs of Massachusetts during her first hundred years, or until a 
quarter of a century previous to the Declaration of Independence, than 
any other family of the original undertakers, assistants, or governors. 
A democratic revolution at the close of that period was under perpetual 
agitation advancing towards a crisis of separation from the mother 
country. The Dudleys, who had been so long and powerfully under 
royal prerogative, were then sent into retirement. (Appendix B, C, D, 
E, F ; Eliot's Diet., Colonel William Dudley.) 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



CHAPTER 

I. The childhood and family of Thomas Dudley, 1576- 

iS9o l 

II. His youth and pagehood at the home of Lord Comp- 

ton, including war in France, 1 590-1 598 . . .12 
III. His marriage; clerkship with Judge Nicolls, 1598- 

1616 2 4 

IV. Steward of Theophilus Clinton, fourth Earl of Lin- 
coln, 1616-1628 3 1 

V. His residence at Sempringham, Boston, and Clips- 
ham, England, 1616-1630 43 

VI. Emigration to America, 1630 54 

VII. The transfer of the First Charter of Massachusetts 

to America, 1630 66 

VIII. The experiences of the emigrants in America, 1630 . 76 
IX. Construction of government and personal disagree- 
ment between Winthrop and Dudley, 1 631 -1632 . 90 
X. Differences further considered, also strictures on 

Dudley, 1632 106 

XL Church and state, union of; need of religion in the 

state, 1632 116 

XII. Settlement and fortification of Cambridge, Mass., by 

Dudley, 1631 123 

XIII. Roger Williams, Gardiner, and others in Massachu- 
setts, 1631-1632 134 

XIV. Answer to Gardiner not subscribed by Dudley;. the 
setting up of the king's colors on the fort, 1631- 

1636 144 

XV. Fortifications in Boston and Cambridge; Dudley 

governor, 1634 ....*... 153 
XVI. First use of the ballot ; government by the people 

secured, 1634 164 

XVII. The Hocking case; Dudley on the side of Plymouth, 

1634 173 



CONTENTS 



XVIII. Preparation for war with England; influence of 
learned men ; sumptuary laws ; Hooker and his 
congregation desire to emigrate to Connecticut, 

1634 183 

XIX. Roger Williams, departure of ; Winthrop and Dudley, 

1634 192 

XX. Code of laws considered ; the fisheries ; Dudley fac- 
tion in politics; Winthrop in trouble; vindication 
of Dudley ; discreditable false story in the matter 
of Marmaduke Matthews ; Hooker emigrates to 
Connecticut; Standing Council formed; Dudley a 

member of it, 1636 . 202 

XXI. Ann Hutchinson ; Harry Vane governor; the Synod 
and Antinomians ; Dudley and Antinomians, also 
his poetry ; his residence in Ipswich, Mass., 1634- 

1636 216 

XXII. Lechford's book; the founding of Harvard College 

and Dudley's connection with it, 1636-1637 . . 233 

XXIII. Winthrop and Dudley at Concord ; the printing 

press; home of Dudley in Roxbury, Mass.; im- 
proved roads, 1638- 1639 2 4§ 

XXIV. Dudley governor; law-making; refusal to deal with 

Rhode Island, 1 640-1 641 263 

XXV. Dudley declines to be assistant, but suffers himself 
to be persuaded; name of king left out of oath, 
1642 279 

XXVI. The Standing Council ; Dudley commissioner to the 
Confederacy ; helped form its articles ; civil war 
in England ; matter of Samuel Gorton in Rhode 

Island, 1 642-1 643 293 

XXVII. Miantonomoh ; the negative voice ; D'Aulnay Com- 
mission ; Rogers and Dudley ; decease of Mrs. 

Thomas Dudley, 1643 310 

XXVIII. Dudley Sergeant Major General; Rev. John Eliot 
and Dudley ; free school of Roxbury ; slavery in 
Massachusetts ; Hingham trouble ; Uncas ; Win- 
throp's " Little Speech," 1 644-1 645 .... 323 

XXIX. Dudley governor; assembly of divines at Westmin- 
ster and Cambridge Synod, and the Independents; 
Winslow's instructions ; D'Aulnay and LaTour, 1643- 

1645 340 

XXX. Declarations of the Confederacy respecting heresy, 
religion, and the state ; harsh laws ; Rev. John 
Eliot; death of Hooker, 1646-1647 .... 353 



CONTENTS xi 

XXXI. Common schools ; New Netherland ; Governor Peter 
Stuyvesant ; Connecticut River and Springfield, 

1647-1648 366 

XXXII. Witchcraft; long hair; death of Winthrop ; execu- 
tion of Charles I.; Indians; Hon. Robert Boyle; 
Book of Discipline, 1648-1649 382 

XXXIII. Dudley governor; charter granted to Harvard Col- 

lege; Lex Mercatoria; Bozoun Allen and Dudley; 
Lord Cromwell and Ireland, 1650 .... 393 

XXXIV. The Baptists ; John Clarke ; aristocracy and demo- 

cracy ; the Bible in the Commonwealth ; theocracy ; 
coinage of shillings ; education ; decease of Dudley, 

1650-1653 406 

Conclusion 425 



APPENDIX 

A. Thomas Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln . . 437 

B. Governor Joseph Dudley 453 

C. Governor Simon Bradstreet and his wife, Anne . . . 464 

D. Major-General Dennison and his wife, Patience . . . 465 

E. Rev. Samuel Dudley 467 

F. Rev. John Woodbridge and his wife, Mercy .... 468 

G. Captain Jonathan Wade and his wife, Deborah . . . 469 

H. Sarah Pacey 469 

I. Paul Dudley 47 2 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Facing 
Page 

Dudley Castle in the County of Worcester, England. Frontispiece 

Compton-Winyates, Warwickshire 12 

Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire 16 

Westminster Hall, London 24 

Court of Common Pleas, Westminster Hall, London ... 28 

Doorway to St. Andrew's Church, on the south side ... 36 

St. Andrew's Church, at Sempringham, Lincolnshire ... 40 

Interior of St. Andrew's Church 46 

Church of St. Botolph, Boston, England 50 

Interior of Church of St. Botolph • S 2 

Willows on the line of Dudley's Palisade in Cambridge, Mass. . 126 

First Charter of Massachusetts 184 

" Two Brothers," on the Bank of the Concord River, Bedford, 

Mass 252 

Charter of Harvard College of 1650, bearing the Sign Manual 

of Governor Dudley 394 



THE LIFE AND WORK OF THOMAS 
DUDLEY 



CHAPTER I 

It may be reasonably questioned whether any single char- 
acter in American history was more devoted to right doing, 
or has been more thoroughly made to appear to be what he 
was not, or more completely undervalued and neglected by 
his friends and traduced by the indifferent, since his own 
generation, which highly appreciated and honored him, than 
the second governor of Massachusetts, whose life work we 
propose to sketch. 

Thomas Dudley, a Puritan second only to Governor John 
Winthrop in founding the Colony of Massachusetts, and in 
its history from 1630 until 1653, was born at Northampton, 
England, in the year 1576, it is said near the residence of 
the Earl of Northampton. 1 But since there was no Earl of 
Northampton until August 2, 16 18, 2 it must be intended that 
he was born near Castle Ashby, 3 the home of Henry Comp- 
ton, or Baron Compton, whose son William became the first 
Earl of Northampton in 161 8, as above mentioned. We 
shall have a special interest in this first Earl, because Gov- 
ernor Dudley was for many years in the highly honorable 
position of page to him. 

It is the duty of every public man to write his autobio- 
graphy, and give to mankind his own interpretation of events. 
Without this, the only person who knew the reasons for his 

1 J. B. Moore's Memoirs of Am. Governors, 273. 

2 Burke's Peerage, 1036. 

8 S. C. Hall's Baronial Halls of England, i. 



2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. i 

action in a given case cannot be heard, while enemies and 
rivals are left unanswered to color the story of his life work, 
as their memory, tinged possibly with personal prejudice, 
may dictate. Without such autobiography, persons seeking 
in the most impartial and judicial spirit to do justice to him 
are forced to conjecture and theorize as to his motives, and, 
with otherwise needless labor, to reproduce the different 
parts of his story, to render the whole as consistent as possi- 
ble without the connecting links, which he held as a secret 
never imparted to the world. 1 

Governor John Winthrop did not make this mistake, but, 
with that prudent regard for the good opinion of posterity 
which signalized his thoughtfulness in securing the esteem 
of his contemporaries, he left an elaborate journal, so just in 
its delineations, even of his own faults and mistakes, that 
general credence has been given to it, in his account of the 
conduct of his political rivals in the heat of action. If we 
were sure that this truly noble man was without mortal 
frailty, and that his fairness of statement was nowhere in- 
tended to win our confidence, but merely designed to do 
ample justice to his own side of controverted subjects, we 
might never seek the side-lights of history, or search to find 
the missing links between the differing historic accounts. 2 

Governor Thomas Dudley was the only son of Captain 

1 " And on me 
Frown not, old ghosts, if I be one of those 
Who make you utter things you did not say, 
And mould you all awry and mar your worth ; 
For whatsoever knows us truly, knows 
That none can truly write his single day, 
And none can write it for him upon earth." 

(Tennyson's Memoirs, vol. i. xi.) 

2 Mr. J. A. Doyle testifies that Winthrop is "not always a trust- 
worthy authority." (J. A. Doyle's English in America, i. 239 note.) If 
self-interest made him untrustworthy on the heretics of Rhode Island, 
would not the same thing influence him in portraying the passions or 
avarice of his political rival? There is no other contemporaneous 
account of the passions or of the avarice of Thomas Dudley. The 
exact extent of them may therefore be a matter of doubt. 



1576-159°] ANCESTRY 3 

Roger Dudley, who was killed, it is said, in the battle of 
Ivry, in which, in 1590, Henry IV. of France gained a deci- 
sive victory over Mayenne. 1 

Captain Dudley fought that day doubtless under Lord 
Willoughby, who is said to have commanded the English 
Protestants in that battle, and whose life five years before, 
on the field of Zutphen, Sir Philip Sidney saved but sacri- 
ficed his own, Sidney's death being one of the most memo- 
rable in the annals of the world. 2 There is a well-supported 
tradition in the Dudley family that Captain Roger Dudley 
was connected by birth with Sir Philip Sidney. 

It was singular that Captain Roger, and later his son 
Thomas Dudley, who was still later the stanch Massachu- 
setts Puritan, were both fighting at different periods, with 
commissions as captains in the British army granted to 
them by Queen Elizabeth, to place Henry of Navarre, the 
first Bourbon, upon the throne of France, who, regardless 
of the Protestants in the ranks of his army, exchanged his 
religion for a royal crown. 

We have not at present satisfactory knowledge of the 
ancestry of Governor Dudley beyond his father, Roger Dud- 
ley ; but George Adlard says, in " The Sutton-Dudleys of 
England and the Dudleys of Massachusetts," 47, that " from 
the investigation I have made in relation to this family, I 
arrive at the conclusion that, though Governor Dudley was 
not descended in the direct line from John Dudley, Duke of 
Northumberland, yet that both were descended from the 
same ancestry. Both use the same coat of arms." This 
seems to be the most reasonable result yet attained. 

Dean Dudley says : " Captain Roger Dudley flourished in 
the time of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's famous Earl 
of Leicester, and appears to have been one of the soldiers 
sent over by the queen to aid Henry of Navarre to establish 
his throne. . . . The Dudleys of the Dudley Castle race 
were ever inclined to a military life. Captain Roger doubt- 

1 Dean Dudley's History of Dudley Family, i. 24. 

2 H. R. Fox Bourne's Sir Philip Sidney, 342. 



4 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. i 

less belonged to this branch of his family." Mr. Dean 
Dudley says also that the wife of Roger Dudley "was a 
kinswoman of Augustine Nicolls of Faxton in Northampton- 
shire," and he thinks that Governor Thomas Dudley was 
drawn towards Puritanism by his mother's family." 1 Mr. 
Jacob Bailey Moore informs us that " there is a tradition 
among the descendants of Governor Thomas Dudley, in the 
eldest branch of the family, that he was descended from 
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded 
22 February, 1 5 53." 2 Adlard says: "This tradition was not 
confined to the Rev. Samuel Dudley, the eldest branch, but 
has been perpetuated among the descendants of Governor 
Joseph Dudley." 3 We do not think that he was descended 
from the Duke of Northumberland, but that they had a 
common ancestry as stated by Adlard. 

Anne Bradstreet, the daughter of Governor Thomas Dud- 
ley, " who wrote the first volume of poems published in New 
England," 4 declared in 1641, when the means of complete 
information were within her reach (for it was during her 
father's lifetime, who doubtless knew his ancestry), that she 
had the selfsame blood in her veins as Sir Philip Sidney. 
And with this abundant light on the subject she wrote, in 
her elegy upon Sir Philip Sidney (whose mother was the 
Lady Mary, eldest daughter of the above-named Duke of 
Northumberland, of the house of Dudley), as follows : — 

" Let, then, none disallow of these my strains, 
Which have the selfsame blood yet in my veins." 

She subsequently changed these lines, it is said, so that they 
now are : — 

" Then let none disallow of these my strains 
Whilst English blood yet runs within my veins." 

This change has been considered by some persons a revoca- 
tion of her claim to relationship. 5 The modification does 

1 Dean Dudley's History of Dudley Family, i. 17. 

2 Memoirs of Am. Governors, 273. 

8 G. Adlard's Sutton-Dudleys of England, 47. 

4 See Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia of Amer. Lit., i. 52. 

6 J. H. Ellis's Works of Anne Bradstreet, Int. xii. 



1576-1590] ANCESTRY 5 

not, however, seem to be a retraction of the claim. She may 
not have liked the personal, possibly boastful, allusion ; it 
was certain to be distasteful to her father. He did not in- 
dulge in that sort of thing ; he particularly concealed those 
matters which were of private concernment, and among them 
his ancestry. The change is in the direction of true art, of 
strict adherence to her theme. 

She had, in the lines before these, enumerated the great 
merits of Sidney's work, mentioned the large esteem in which 
he was held, and lastly called attention to the love that Eng- 
land owed to him. It was not in good taste to exalt her own 
strains, for the reason that she was related to Sidney ; or to 
draw attention to herself, or to withdraw public thought from 
the far greater achievements of her hero. She had failed in 
these lines of her first edition to carry out her poetic con- 
ception to completion, and, like a sensible woman, when her 
next edition appeared she had corrected them. I am unable 
to find a word written by Anne Bradstreet disclaiming her 
relationship to Sidney. She knew from her father, her 
husband, and her family the fact which she had so simply 
related. We must cherish her significant testimony, for 
she was an actor in those busy scenes, and speaks as one 
having authority. The light of truth streams through her 
first verses. 

Anne Bradstreet's claim to relationship is confirmed by 
the coats of arms both of Governor Thomas Dudley, placed 
on his last will by himself, and of Governor Joseph Dudley. 
They were a lion rampant, with a crescent for difference. 
These, it is asserted, belonged to only two branches of the 
Dudley family, both descended from the first Baron Dudley, 
who died in 1488. 

Massachusetts was then English territory, and the laws 
of that country regulated and restricted the use of heraldic 
arms. They were then a distinguishing mark between noble 
families, and no high-minded person like Governor Dudley 
would assume the arms of another family, and no dishonest 
man would dare to do it. 



6 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. i 

Titles to estates in England were held by virtue of the 
arms and escutcheons of ancestors ; they proved marriages 
and descent by them sometimes. 1 

How well informed Governor Dudley was respecting his 
descent will be evident upon a moment's reflection. John 
Sutton, the first Baron Dudley of Dudley Castle, died only 
eighty-eight years before the birth of Thomas Dudley. Two 
successive barons, Edward the second and John the third 
Baron Dudley, had during that brief period lived and died ; 
while, within the same exact duration of time, Edmund Dud- 
ley, the merciless extortioner of Henry VII., who furnished 
a theme for Sir Thomas More in the " Utopia," 2 John Dud- 
ley, Duke of Northumberland, and Lord ' Guilford Dudley, 
his son, descending by another line from the' same first Baron 
Dudley, flourished and disappeared. 

Sir Philip Sidney, the son of Mary Dudley, died at Zut- 
phen when Thomas Dudley was ten -^ears of age ; and 
Robert, Earl of Leicester, the favorite of-^ueen Elizabeth, 
died when he was twelve years old. ' 

We can easily conceive Governor Dudley to have known 
individuals who had met every one of the above-named per- 
sons, from the first Baron Dudley down to his own times. 
If we recall his social relation in England, his thoughtful, 
scholarly habits, and, in advanced life, his extended public 
career, we may be morally certain that the history of every 
one of these personages was familiarly considered by him, 
and his personal relation to them thoroughly understood. 

When, therefore, in 1653, he used the Sutton-Dudley seal 
on his will, he was not ignorant of his rights. He was 
trained to the law, and had long been a judge of it, and was 
always obedient to it in an exemplary manner. When he 
applied that coat of arms to his last will and testament, now 
preserved with probate records of Suffolk County, Mass., 
— one of the most solemn acts of his life, and nearly the 
final one, — he in effect affirmed that he was descended in 

1 Sutton-Dudleys of England, 51 ; N. Am. Rev., c. 191. 

2 Hume's Hist. Eng., iii. 387, 411, 412. 



1 576-1 590] ANCESTRY 7 

direct lineage from the barons of Dudley Castle. 1 If, with 
his experience and knowledge, he did it wilfully with a pur- 
pose to cheat and to deceive as to his family, to claim what 
did not belong to him, to represent himself to be what he 
was not, or even to give to himself the benefit of a doubt, 
then that single last act of his life is in conflict with all the 
rest of his honest record. 

His use of this seal under the circumstances tends, so 
far as the testimony of one honest man can go, to sustain 
the claim that he rightly appropriated it. The importance 
of this act on his part is greatly increased by the fact that 
it is the only known instance in which, after years of con- 
cealment and reserve, he suffered his ancestry to be revealed 
by himself in America. It seems to have been the solitary 
departure from a fixed purpose. His right is corroborated 
by his children, and by other evidence above mentioned. 

The heralds may not recognize the claim, but the know- 
ledge of Thomas Dudley himself is of far greater weight 
than their theories about the title. They may indeed refuse 
it, but it will not be the first time that legal titles have been 
lost by neglect, while the claim survives with every attribute 
except technicality and the letter of law. 

Mr. John Fiske says : "Thomas Dudley came of an ancient 
family, the history of which, alike in the Old and in the New 
England, has not been altogether creditable." This is strictly 
true of every other family. It is harmless enough at first 
thought, but as you read and consider you feel that injustice 
is in it. It leaves a strong inference that the record of the 
family is dishonored below the average of ancient families, 
which we do not believe to be the fact. 

There is much certainly to be satisfied with in the family 
history. Sir Philip Sidney said : " Though in all truth I 
may justly affirm that I am by my father's side of ancient 
and always well-esteemed and well-matched gentry, yet I do 
acknowledge I say that my chiefest honour is to be a Dud- 

1 J. Timbs's Abbeys, Castles, etc., of England, 502 ; Penny Mag., xii. 
§3- 



8 THOMAS DUDLEY ■ [ch. i 

ley." l And his father, Sir Henry Sidney, wrote to the same 
purport in his famous letter of advice to Philip at school : 
" Remember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of 
by your mother's side ; and think that only by virtuous life 
and good action you may be an ornament to that illustrious 
family." 2 

Governor Joseph Dudley has been both greatly praised 
and greatly blamed, chiefly because he was an Episcopalian 
and a royalist with Andros, although he was in fair repute 
later during thirteen years. We shall observe afterwards 
that some of his public services have added to the renown of 
himself and family. 

His son, Chief Justice Paul Dudley, was very distinguished 
and beyond reproach, 3 and recognized as an eminent scholar 
on both sides of the ocean. Among the noted descendants 
of Governor Thomas Dudley, though not bearing his name, 
are to be mentioned Dr. William Ellery Channing, Richard 
H. Dana (father and son), Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wen- 
dell Phillips, and Charles Eliot Norton. We might extend 
this list, but the fame of the family is safe with these names. 4 

We are not, however, unmindful that the greatness of 
Governor Dudley arose not so much from his distinguished 
ancestry as from his own eminent life work. 

Far above "the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power," 
is the imperishable renown of being one of the foremost 
among the founders of this great nation, dedicated to liberty, 
to the freedom of human thought, to the worth and excel- 
lence of individual character. It was, indeed, a memorable 
achievement to bring into this wilderness in the seventeenth 
century a civilization, laws, customs, and social life the most 
advanced in the world, and to plant them with such vigor 
and stability that they continue to flourish through all con- 

1 Julia Cartwright's Dorothy Sidney, 4. 

2 lb., 4. 

8 Excepting the association of himself with his father by the enemies 
of both. 

4 Dean Dudley's History of Dudley Family. 



1576-159°] ANCESTRY 9 

flicts, with constantly extending potency over the continent, 
and in turn to react in unmeasured energy upon the pro- 
gress and destiny of the Old World. " Let us praise famous 
men," saith the wise son of Sirach ; "the Lord hath wrought 
great glory by them through his great power from the begin- 
ning." 1 

If Governor Dudley and his descendants may not claim 
kindred to the Sidneys, and have that claim allowed (which 
we do not admit), it is enough that he was an eminent foun- 
der of New England. There is no other epoch in human 
history from which so many great events have taken a turn. 

It seems almost incredible to us that Governor Dudley 
should wish so utterly to burn all the bridges behind him- 
self, sever all connection with his kindred and the land of 
his nativity, when he came to America to stay. He was, 
however, a Puritan, and regarded all human distinctions 
founded on family and blood as worthless. They had left 
the Old World to establish a new government in which only 
church members were to rule. Utopia was to be created, 
society was to appear in perfection. In this new, strange 
life the church, government, and social orders all underwent 
a rigid inspection to discern if there were any evil ways 
in them. In each institution they saw how vast the possi- 
bilities, and that, while tender memories and sacred asso- 
ciations attracted them to fatherland, with its endearing 
homes, matchless landscapes, and cultured life, yet they 
must forsake all these, restricted henceforth to the rugged 
but constantly broadening path of duty. 

There seems to have been a prevalent disregard of descent 
and genealogies among these Puritans. Examination of the 

1 " The true marshaling of the degrees of sovereign honor," says 
Lord Bacon, " are these : in the first place are ' conditores imperiorum,' 
founders of States and Commonwealths ; ... in the second place are 
' legislatores,' 'lawgivers,' which are also called second founders, or 
'perpetui principes ' (perpetual rulers), because they govern by their 
ordinances after they are gone." (Lord Bacon's Essays, lv.) Thomas 
Dudley is included in both of these classes. 



io THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. I 

lives of the governors of New Plymouth from 1620 to 1692, 
and of the governors of Massachusetts Bay from 1630 to 
1689, consisting of sixteen biographical sketches, discloses 
only two governors, John Winthrop and Sir Henry Vane, 
whose descent J. B. Moore, in his " Memoirs of the Ameri- 
can Governors," has traced beyond the second generation. 
In the instance of Winthrop we have only three Adam Win- 
throps in succession. A striking illustration of this dearth 
of genealogy among these people has been the but recently 
successful effort to ascertain who the father of Roger Wil- 
liams was, or where he himself was born. These instances, 
and many more which might be given, show that these Puri- 
tans took no interest in such matters, indeed entertained an 
aversion to them. It is probable that they were too busy 
with the real concerns of life. In some cases, moreover, 
they had been disowned and discarded by their families 
because they had become Puritans. It may have been so on 
the Dudley side of Governor Dudley's family, if the theory is 
correct that he was influenced by his mother's family to be- 
come a Puritan. In all such cases it would be a painful sub- 
ject to revert to, and the severance from their former home 
and kindred had been so absolute that they had no heart 
to open that closed and forever sealed volume of their lives. 
Governor Dudley lost his mother in infancy, it is said, 
and his father at fourteen years of age. His mother's name 
has not been preserved for us. He had one sister, probably 
younger than himself, of whom we know only that she sur- 
vived their parents, and the orphans seem to have been left 
to the care of kind friends. Cotton Mather says Thomas 
Dudley " might say in his experience, that when he was 
forsaken of father and mother, then God took him up, and 
stirred up some friends that took special charge of him even 
in his childhood. 'Twas said that there was five hundred 
pounds left for him in an unknown hand, which was not 
so long concealed but that it came to light in due time, and 
was seasonably delivered into his own hands after he came 
to man's estate ; but before that time passed through many 



1576-159°] EDUCATION u 

changes wherein he found the goodness of God, both in way 
of protection and preservation, by all which experiences he 
was the better prepared for such eminent services for the 
Church of God which he was in after time called unto." 1 

Mather adds that, in the minority and childhood of Dud- 
ley, " It pleased God to move the heart of one Mrs. Puefroy, 
a gentlewoman famed in the parts about Northampton for 
wisdom, piety, and works of charity : by her care he was 
trained up in some Latin school, wherein he learned the 
rudiments of his grammar, the which he improved after- 
wards by his own industry to considerable advantage, so as 
he was able even in his age to understand any Latin author 
as well as the best- clerk in the country that had been con- 
tinually kept to study, which made it the more remarkable in 
the observation of some ministers, in whose hearing he was 
sometimes occasioned to read something out of a Latin book, 
who, by his false pronunciation, gathered he did not under- 
stand what he read, but upon further search and enquiry 
they found that he understood the language as well as them- 
selves, although for want of school literature he missed the 
true pronunciation according to the rules of grammar to 
which children are exactly held at school ; and probably 
after the decease of his parents he had not opportunity of 
that advantage, so long as many children under their par- 
ents' wings failed to enjoy it." 2 It appears that the Puef- 
roys were connected by marriage with the Dudley family, 
and this no doubt accounts for the assistance rendered to 
Dudley in his education by Mrs. Puefroy. Mather is so 
impressed with the wisdom and piety of Mrs. Puefroy that 
we can seem to see that she was in sympathy with his Puri- 
tanic thought, and that her influence may early have given 
direction to the religious sentiments of the boy, who was full 
of gratitude to her for extending a helping hand to him, and 
assisting him to an education which otherwise he could never 
have secured. 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 207; Sutton-Dudleys, 24. 

2 lb., 208 ; Sutton-Dudleys, 24. 



CHAPTER II 

Cotton Mather informs us that so soon as ever Thomas 
Dudley " had passed his childhood he was by those that 
stood his best friends preferred to be a page 1 to the Earl of 
Northampton, under whom he had opportunity to learn 
courtship and whatever belonged to civility and good beha- 
vior ; with that earl he tarried till he was ripe for higher 
services." 2 The year is not mentioned when his period of 
childhood was passed and over, but we may well understand 
it to have been in about his fifteenth year. And although 
it is contrary to Cotton Mather, we have some reason to 
think that he continued in this occupation six years, more or 
less, until his majority. 

If we are correct, there was no Earl of Northampton until 
long after this time, when Thomas Dudley was about forty- 
two years old. We find in " Burke's Peerage " that William 
Compton, second lord, K. B., lord president of the Marches 
and dominion of Wales, who succeeded his father in 1589, 
as Baron Compton of Compton, was created Earl of North- 
ampton August 2, 161 8, and that he died in 1630, the year 
that Dudley came to America. His great-grandfather, Sir 
William Compton, Knt, was the page of Henry VIII., and 
was with him at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and in 1522 
went on a special embassy to the Emperor Charles V. He 
built the house Compton-Winyates, near to Edge Hill, and 
nearer to the village of Brailes, in Warwickshire, England. 
This was one of the stately homes of the Comptons, where 

1 The page of Dudley's period in England, as will appear later in the 
present chapter, was of gentle blood, and held a position of honor, as 
is there shown by a quotation from Ben Jonson. 

2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 208. 



1590-98] COMPTON-WINYATES 13 

it is probable that Thomas Dudley lived a portion of the 
time that he was with the family. It is now standing, beau- 
tiful in ruins. 1 There is another home of the Comptons, 
Castle Ashby, eight miles southeast of Northampton, the 
title to which was in Sir William, but it was not much occu- 
pied by the Compton family before the second Lord Comp- 
ton, the friend of Thomas Dudley, took his bride there, 
Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir John Spencer, Knt., 
lord mayor of London. They were married in 1593. 2 One 
of the requests of the rich heiress of Spencer to her lord 
was to "build up Ashby House." And the original pile may 
be presumed to have been completed when King James I. 
and his queen favored its noble owner with a visit in 1605. 3 
Castle Ashby is at present the deeply interesting seat of 
the Marquis of Northampton, where visitors are kindly 
welcomed twice each week to view the pure Elizabethan 
architecture, plain and massive, the paintings, and exquisite 
marbles. 

Perhaps there is no house in the kingdom which is placed 
in a more hidden and out-of-the-world situation than Comp- 
ton-Winyates. It stands in a deep hollow of the Edge Hill 
range in Warwickshire, surrounded with ponds and woods. 

It is quite evident that the youth of Dudley was spent in 
the midst of wealth, luxury, and splendor. We linger with 
delight over every place and thing which we feel quite certain 
that his eyes have seen, because all of these, however small, 
contributed to make him what he was, and to fit him for the 
great mission before him beyond the sea. " These armorial 
insignia, thistles, roses, and unions of thistle and rose, record 
the loyalty of the house in the reigns of Henry VIII. and 
James I., in which the Comptons received distinguished 
marks of the royal grace." 4 It cannot be extravagant to 

1 Wm. Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places, Visit to Compton- 
Winyates. 

2 Northampton, Burke's Peerage, 1037. 

3 S. C. Hall's Baronial Halls of England, i. Castle Ashby. 

4 Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places, 127. 



14 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. n 

say that here also in those days might be seen all the gayety 
and gallantry of Vanity Fair. 

The Comptons were not Puritans ; they intensely enjoyed 
the good things of life. Here, in all the excess of fashion and 
of gleeful joviality, Dudley, in robust youth and even to 
vigorous manhood, took his leading share. 

When in later years Thomas Dudley was governor of 
Massachusetts, a Puritan of Puritans, with grave responsi- 
bilities, in peril from enemies at home and abroad, and above 
all with a burning zeal for the welfare of Zion, the hope of 
the world, when all his "serious thoughts had rest in hea- 
ven," how often he must have recalled his childish ways, and 
recurred to those frivolous days at Compton-Winyates and at 
Ashby Castle! How changed at last from the splendor of 
his first estate, and yet in the current of human events how 
vastly greater was the last than the first ! He survives in 
the memory of men, because he has served mankind by his 
sufferings and privations, while the gay throngs who joined 
him in the dance are forgotten. 

There is little if any doubt that the family of Dudley was 
friendly to the Compton family. How intimate they were 
we do not know, but Sir Henry, the first Lord Compton, was 
knighted by the Earl of Leicester in 1566. 1 

We are in doubt what the exact duties were of Dudley as 
page of the second Lord Compton, but we may fairly judge 
that they were such as would be usual in the homes of people 
of his rank at that period. We have full accounts of his 
great fortune, and we may conclude, from the magnificence 
of the homes still extant, something of the elegant life which 
abounded there. We can easily accept as very truthful the 
words of Cotton Mather, that, as page of Lord Compton, "he 
had opportunity to learn courtship and whatever belonged to 
civility and good behavior." 2 It is quite important that we 
should note these words, and the elegance in which he lived 

1 S. C. Hall's Baronial Halls of England, i. Castle Ashby; History 
of Dudley Family, i. 42, 43. 

2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 208; Magnalia, i. 120. 



1590-98] PAGE OF LORD COMPTON 15 

in this early period of his life, at the time when they would 
make the most indelible impression upon his character. 

I think that we cannot too thoughtfully consider these 
matters in his early education, since many persons have been 
inclined to disparage his manners, and to allege that he was 
neither courteous nor well-bred. Certainly, if any one in the 
colony had been schooled in courtly ceremony and knew the 
respectful and gracious usages of society, it was Thomas 
Dudley, trained as he had been in this home, and later in 
the family of the Earl of Lincoln. These two were among 
the very first families in the kingdom ; and it must have been 
a perpetual education in refinement to have had, during the 
period of an ordinary lifetime, the entrte to these homes, and, 
more than that, to have taken up one's abode in them. 

There can be no doubt that Dudley used vigorous English 
sometimes in expressing his abhorrence of wrong-doing, his 
convictions of right, and we are thankful that he exercised 
that becoming freedom. 

It is quite evident that Dudley belonged to a distinguished 
family from his having this position of page. He would 
have been apprenticed to learn a trade had he been of 
humble parentage. But, instead of this, he took a position 
which is sought by youths of rank, sons of nobility. The 
story of pagedom is an interesting one, and although we 
cannot enter fully upon it here, yet to make it evident how 
far removed it was from menial service, and yet how near 
and bordering to it in some of its offices, we must venture a 
little into its functions and duties. 1 

1 Ben Johnson, who was born two years earlier than Dudley, has 
given us a fine contemporaneous account of pagehood : — 

" by a line 
Of institution, from our ancestors 
Hath been derived down to us, and received 
In a succession for the noblest way 
Of brushing up our youth in letters, arms, 
Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise, 
And all the blazon of a gentleman ! 
Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, 
To move his body gracefully, to speak 



16 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ii 

It appears to have had its origin largely in knighthood, 
beginning with the Crusades. The squire and the page were 
both in training for knighthood, but the first had advanced 
farther than the second. A chivalrous education demanded 
successive stages of boyhood and youth, while knighthood 
was reached in early manhood. 

Every feudal court and castle was in fact a school of chiv- 
alry. The page made a beginning in his service and training 
when he was between seven and eight years old ; and dur- 
ing his novitiate of seven or eight years, he was the constant 
personal attendant of both his master and his mistress. He 
waited on them in their hall, attended in the chase, served 
the lady in her bower, and followed the lord to the camp. 
" From the chaplain and his mistress and her damsels he 
learned the rudiments of religion, of rectitude, and of love ; 
from his master and his squires, the elements of military 
exercise." 

When he was between fifteen and sixteen the youth became 
a squire, but continued to wait at dinner with the pages, 
though in a more dignified manner. He served, carved, and 
helped the dishes. He offered the first or principal cup of 
wine to his master and his guests, and carried to them the 
ewer and napkin before and after meals. He laid the tables 
for games, and shared in the pastimes for which he had pre- 
pared. His military training consumed more and more his 
time and thought. Skill in horsemanship was one of his 
great accomplishments. 1 At length he took his sword to 
the priest, who laid it on the altar, blessed it, and returned it. 
It was the squire's duty to display and guard in battle the 
banner of the baron or the pennon of the knight, to supply 
him with his own horse if his was disabled, to receive and 
keep his prisoners, to fight by his side if he was unequally 

The language pure, or to turn his mind, 
Or manners, more to the harmony of nature, 
Than in these nurseries of nobility ? " 

1 Hist, of Bayard, the good chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, 
chap, iii., iv. 



1590-98] PAGE AND SOLDIER 17 

matched, to rescue him if captured, and bury him honorably 
when dead. If he had borne himself well for six or seven 
years, our squire was dubbed a knight. 1 

If we are correct in our theory that Dudley left the ser- 
vice of Lord Compton in his twenty-first year, and then, with 
a commission from Queen Elizabeth, went to take part in 
the war in France, we may regard it the natural step in his 
advancement from a page to a soldier. It is also reasonable 
to conclude that Lord Compton assisted him in obtaining his 
commission as captain, because he showed his earnest friend- 
ship years after this by recommending Thomas Dudley to 
the Earl of Lincoln. It was certainly a very honorable posi- 
tion which he held as the page of so distinguished a man. 
The influence from association so early in life, for so many 
years, with the family of Lord Compton, and with their emi- 
nent friends, must have been constant during his life. 

The seventy-seven years of Dudley's life, from 1576 to 

1 Knighthood : Ency. Brit., 9th ed., p. 1 17 ; Sainte Palaye, Memories, 
i. 36; Mills, Hist, of Chivalry, i. chap. ii. The office of page, like every- 
thing else, changed with new customs. It survived longest in France, 
down indeed until the Revolution. Queen Victoria now has pages, but 
they are servants who are recompensed in money, and not purely by 
love and honor, sometimes by commissions in the army. " The most 
graceful volunteer page that ever existed was Edward, the Black Prince, 
who, when the noble, valiant, and unfortunate John, King of France, 
was captive in the tent of the prince's father, King Edward, waited on 
the illustrious prisoner as he sat at table, pouring out his wine, and 
handing to him his napkin. When the parents of George III. of Eng- 
land, the Prince and Princess of Wales, were at dinner, Prince George 
and his brother Edward used to stand apart and wait upon their father 
and mother." (Temple Bar Mag., No. 42, p. 92.) 

Antinous, the beautiful page of Hadrian, in the second century, long 
before the age of chivalry, gave his life for his master, as it is thought. 
It was believed by the ancients to be a most noble instance of altruism. 
Hadrian enrolled him among the gods, and caused statues of him to be 
set up in almost every part of the world ; oracles were delivered in his 
name. " A star between the eagle and the zodiac, which the courtiers of 
the emperor pretended had then first made its appearance and was the 
soul of Antinous, received his name, which it still bears." (Smith's Diet. 
Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Mythology, i. 192.) 



18 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. n 

1653, were very important in the world's history. But the 
events of the one or two preceding centuries had been pre- 
paring the way in Europe for an accelerated advancement 
in almost everything pertaining to human life and civiliza- 
tion. This period was conspicuous in improved agriculture 
and manufactures, in the more general diffusion of knowledge 
among the masses of the people, in individual freedom of 
opinion in politics and religion, tending toward democracy, 
all of which resulted no doubt largely from a reformation in 
religion. 1 

The invention of the mariner's compass in 1302, of gun- 
powder in 1320, Wickliffe's translation of the Bible in 1380 
(only in manuscript until 1731), of printing with movable 
type in 1440, the discovery of America in 1492, and the re- 
vival of learning from 1450 to 1550, were some of the events 
which led up to greater activity, and to higher living and 
thinking. 

Of the importance of the period in which Dudley lived, it 
is enough to say that it began in the Elizabethan age, glori- 
ous in English literature. He was contemporary with Gali- 
leo, Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh, Shakspere, Spinoza, 
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Lord Bacon, Lord Coke, 
Milton, Herbert, Herrick, Richard Hooker, John Bunyan, 
Donne, Dryden, Evelyn, Hobbes, Law, Locke, Marlowe, Sir 
Isaac Newton, Pepys, Selden, Tasso, Temple, Sir William 
Waller, and Walton. 

The Geneva Bible was translated and completed in 1576, 
the year that Dudley was born ; while the authorized King 
James translation appeared in 161 1, when he was thirty-five 
years of age. Countless thousands of vernacular Bibles were 
printed, and in a short time were in the hands, and inspiring! 
the minds, of the masses, creating a new Europe, which, 
regenerated, was destined to colonize America. 

1 " There never was anywhere," says Lord Jeffrey, " anything like 
the sixty or seventy years that elapsed from the middle of the reign of 
Elizabeth to the Restoration." (Botta's Hand-book Universal Lit., 450. 
See also T. W. May's Democracy in Europe, p. lxv. ; 2 lb., 375, 376.) 



1590-98] WAR IN FRANCE 19 

Dudley had now, in 1 597, reached the ripe age of twenty- 
one years, which date Mather is supposed to refer to when 
he said that he tarried till he was ripe for higher services. 1 
He no doubt tenderly and proudly cherished the memory 
of his heroic father, and the old Protestant cause, for which 
the father had died in a foreign land, far from his kindred ; 
recollections calculated to arouse his enthusiasm, and kindle 
his deepest emotions. 

His inborn martial spirit, descending from generations of 
heroes, was in readiness for action, and eager for mortal 
combat. 

The announcement was made that the queen must have 
soldiers to fight the armies of Philip II. of Spain, the 
Leaguers, or their successors. They were to be commanded 
by the gallant Henry of Navarre, under whose daring leader- 
ship Dudley's noble father had fallen seven years before. 
The young men of Northampton, accustomed to such invi- 
tations, gave little heed to this call for troops, until Dudley, 
with that undaunted spirit which always characterized him, 
came to the front, and attracted them to his leadership. He 
held, through the influence of friends, a commission as cap- 
tain from Queen Elizabeth ; he had also character, prestige, 
and public confidence. It is of great importance, in studying 
the quality and character of a man, to observe carefully the 
estimate of him by his youthful associates. No other opin- 
ion of his gifts and qualities will ever be more thorough 
or more permanent, although the subsequent growth and 
development in some persons have astonished their early 
friends. 2 

He had, in the unconscious days of boyhood before he had 
taken on the mask which humanity later in life assumes to 
hide its motives and its inmost thoughts, won the golden 
opinions, and, more than that, the firm confidence, of his com- 
rades, to such an extent that they prepared to risk every- 
thing in foreign war under his intrepid leadership. 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 208. 

2 " Childhood shows the man as morn the day." (Milton.) 



20 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ii 

Mather says : " The young lads about Northampton were 
none of them willing to enter into the service till a commis- 
sion was sent down to this young gallant to be their captain, 
and then presently there were fourscore that were willing to 
list themselves under him as their captain. With these he 
was sent over into France, which, being at that time an 
Academy of Arms as well as of Arts, he had opportunity 
to furnish himself with such military skill as fitted him to 
command in the field as well as on the bench. The service 
that he and his company were put upon in France was to 
help Amiens, before which city the King Henry IV. at that 
time lay." 

It is an incident of interest that ten years previous to this 
date the beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots, had been executed 
at Fotheringay Castle, less than thirty miles north of his 
home, when Dudley was eleven years of age. She was an 
unfortunate victim in that same war which deprived him of 
his father three years later, and which he himself was now 
about to enter. 1 

We are already informed by Mather that King Henry lay 
before Amiens, and that Dudley had gone to assist him. 
The city had been captured by the Spaniards in 1 597 through 
a stratagem so petty that it was more unbearable than a 
downright battle and defeat. It was retaken without blood- 
shed, however, by King Henry, Dudley and his company 
participating in the siege, which ended six months later, in 
September, in its capitulation. 2 

1 John Hosack's Mary, Queen of Scots, ii. 410; H. M. Band's 
Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, i. 284. 

2 There were many notable events in the history of Amiens, which 
would make it an attractive place to visit after the siege was over; and 
Dudley himself, by his delay there, has invested the place with a new 
fascination for those of us who are interested in his life work. Peter 
the Hermit, who preached the first Crusade and kindled Europe with 
his burning zeal, was born here in the middle of the eleventh century. 
William of Malmesbury says : "The Welshman left his hunting, the 
Scotchman his fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking party, 
the Norwegian his raw fish." The statue of Peter stands in front of 



1590-98] CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS 21 

Amiens is divided by eleven beautiful trout streams, and 
was styled by Louis XI. "the little Venice" of France. It 
was natural that Ruskin, who had characterized the Ca- 
thedral of St. Mark in Venice as the Book-Temple which 
" shone from afar off like the star of the Magi," 1 should 
designate this cathedral as the " Bible of Amiens." We 
have, perhaps, lingered too long over this interesting local- 
ity ; our excuse is that here is a structure which keeps its 
youth. If Thomas Dudley entered the portals of this tem- 
ple, trod its pavement, or looked up into its fretted vaults, 
or studied its three magnificent rose-windows, or if the early 
influence of Puritanism restrained him from seeking the 
buildings dedicated to Popery and idolatry, which we do not 
believe, since Puritanism came to him after his return home 
(see Mather) ; if he gazed every succeeding day, as he must 
have done, upon its noble exterior, and saw its lofty spire, 
four hundred and twenty-two feet in height, — all the 
strength, beauty, and grandeur which we behold in it to-day 
was then visible to him. The perpetuity of this great work 
of men's hands seems to extinguish time, and make suc- 
ceeding generations of men contemporary ; they all seem in 
imagination to walk the same streets and pavements with us. 

This siege was of great importance, because here was the 
last resistance of Philip II. The city was completely block- 

the great cathedral, which dates from 1220, " and is the crowning glory 
of Gothic art." (Charles H. Moore's Gothic Architecture, 74.) It has 
been well said that an " abbey church of the thirteenth century . . . 
is matchless, priceless, sacred; such as man on this earth will never 
replace, nor ever again see." (Frederic Harrison's The Meaning of 
History, 437.) John Ruskin asks: "Who built it, shall we ask? 
God, and Man, is the first and most true answer. The stars in their 
courses built it, and the nations. Greek Athena labors here, and 
Roman Father Jove, and Guardian Mars. The Gaul labors here, and 
the Frank; knightly Norman, — mighty Ostrogoth, — and wasted 
anchorite of Idumea." (Our Fathers have Told Us, The Bible of 
Amiens, sec. 12, p. 371.) "But of all, simplest, completest, and most 
authoritative in its lessons to the active mind of North Europe, is this 
on the foundation stones of Amiens." (lb. sec. 57, p. 410.) 
1 Stones of Venice, ii. chap. ix. sec. Ixxi. 



22 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ii 

aded by the French and allied lines ; and the Spaniards, 
despairing of relief, at length capitulated on the 25th of 
September, 1597. On April 15, 1598, Henry IV. issued 
the memorable Edict of Nantes, which protected Protestants 
for nearly a century; and finally, on May 2, 1598, the Peace 
of Vervins was signed. 1 

The year 1598 was, in France, an eventful one. She then, 
on May 2, at the Peace of Vervins, began her record in 
modern history, and left behind her mediaeval annals. Her 
monarchy was thenceforth concentrated and absolute, and a 
number of great ministers came forth in succession to direct 
her course : Sully, Richelieu, and Colbert. Thomas Dudley, 
the second governor at the beginning of this epoch, was 
only an humble captain in her army, whose great commander 
had been false to the Queen of England, and to the Pro- 
testant cause. Nevertheless, it was a notable era in human 
history, and furnishes a graphic episode in the personal 
record of the subject of this biography. 2 

Lord Macaulay has given us a comprehensive statement 
of the political situation at this important juncture. " Dur- 

1 H. M. Baird's Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, ii. 400-421. 

2 Henry of Navarre, for some months previous to his assassination, 
May 14, 1610, was seriously engaged, without success, in uniting fifteen 
states of Europe into one magnificent Christian republic. Queen 
Elizabeth of England was said to be in sympathy with this enterprise. 
(H. M. Baird's Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, ii. 491, 492 ; Memoirs 
of Sully, v. 62; Works of Charles Sumner, ii. 233.) 

It is said in the Convention of 1787, which framed our national Con- 
stitution, that " the project of Henry IV. and his statesmen was but 
the picture in miniature of the great portrait to be exhibited" in our 
Federal Republic. (James Madison's Papers, by Henry D. Gilpin, ii. 
956.) 

We do not claim that Dudley, who was a captain in the army of 
Henry in 1597-98, brought to our shores the dreams of federation so 
dearly cherished by the King of France. It was, however, a memorable 
occurrence, that he, as a commissioner, assisted in the organization of 
the New England Confederacy in 1643, that beginning of the union of 
colonies here which, with its accessions of territory, became in the full- 
ness of time the United States of America. (Richard Frothingham's 
Rise of the Republic of the United States, 33-71.) 



1590-98] WAR ENDED 23 

ing the greater part of Elizabeth's reign, therefore, the Puri- 
tans in the House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, 
felt no disposition to array themselves in systematic oppo- 
sition to the government. But, when the defeat of the 
Armada, the successful resistance of the United Provinces 
to the Spanish power, the firm establishment of Henry the 
Fourth on the throne of France, and the death of Philip 
the Second, had secured the state and the church against 
all danger from abroad, an obstinate struggle, destined to 
last during several generations, instantly began at home." 1 

Peace being now concluded, and his services no longer 
required, with his company Dudley returned to England, 
only to enter upon new, very important, and as yet untried 
fields in his career. 

1 Macaulay's Hist. Eng., i. 47. 



CHAPTER III 

Dudley was unexpectedly discharged as a soldier, without 
fighting, but he had obtained valuable education and disci- 
pline in his preparation, and in the expedition to France, 
which were destined to be of important service to him in 
future years. It was doubtless a great disappointment both 
to him and to his company to retire without a sight of battle, 
or an opportunity to win undying glory. They were none 
of them brimful of experience, like the Duke of Wellington 
when he exclaimed, " Take my word for it, if you had seen 
but one day of war, you would pray to Almighty God that 
you might never see such a thing again." 

Marriage was the next important business which claimed 
Dudley's attention on his return to England. War and love 
each require courage ; faint hearts cannot win in either. 

He was married to Miss Dorothy Yorke, the daughter of 
Edmond Yorke of Cotton End, in the county of Northamp- 
ton, England. Their son, Samuel Dudley, was baptized the 
30th day of November, 1608, at All-Saints', Northampton. 1 

Cotton Mather says that " after Captain Dudley returned 
into England, he settled again about Northampton, and there 
meeting with a gentlewoman both of good estate and good 
extraction, he entered into marriage with her, and then took 
up his habitation for some time in that part of the country, 
where he enjoyed the ministry of Mr. Dodd, Mr. Cleever, 
and one Mr. Winston, who was a very solid and judicious 
divine as any thereabouts, though he never published any- 
thing in print as some others did." 2 

Captain Dudley appears to have been six years older than 

1 Dean Dudley's History of Dudley Family, App., ii. 24. 

2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 209. 



1598-1616] CLERK OF JUDGE NICOLLS 25 

his wife, who must have been born in 1582, since she is said 
to have died at the age of 61 at Roxbury, Mass., in 1643. 1 
There were five children by this marriage. 

It interests us to note that Mrs. Dudley was a "gentle- 
woman both of good estate and good extraction," because, 
although it may not establish his social position, it carries 
a strong probability that he also was of "good extraction," 
and this is confirmed by all of the authorities, who agree that 
he was of gentle blood. 

Mather says that Dudley " was taken by Judge Nicolls to 
be his clerk, who, being his kinsman also, by the mother's 
side, took more special notice of him ; and from him, being 
a prompt young man, he learned much skill in the law, and 
attained to such abilities as rendered him capable of per- 
forming a secretary's place, for he was known to have a very 
good pen, to draw up any writing in succinct and apt expres- 
sions, which so far commended him to the favor of the judge, 
that he would never have dismissed him from his service, 
but have preferred him to some more eminent and profit- 
able employment under him, but that he was prevented by 
death." 2 

We are unable to determine what year Dudley went with 
Judge Nicolls. Mather evidently tells us that it was before 
he went to war in France (we think that it was after), but 
he also assures us that the judge was so much pleased with 
the services of Dudley that only death itself could and did 
separate them. We are informed that Judge Nicolls died 
in August, 16 1 6. We thus conclude that Thomas Dudley 
certainly was his clerk in 1616, or eighteen years after the 
war. That he was his clerk before the war is improbable. 

We may reasonably understand, as we have already men- 
tioned, that Dudley did not leave Lord Compton until he 
was twenty-one years old. He reached his majority, as we 
have seen, the year he went to France, 1597, where he 
remained a year or more. 

1 Dean Dudley's History of Dudley Family, i. 276. 

2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 208; also Sutton-Dudleys, 25. 



26 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. m 

We cannot give too much attention to the life and charac- 
ter of the Hon. Augustine Nicolls, because he must have 
had a marked influence upon the character of Dudley. 

It is said that " Nicolls entered at the Middle Temple in 
London, November 5, 1 575 ; that he became a reader or 
lecturer there in 1602, and in the same year was summoned 
to take the degree of the Coif, which, in consequence of the 
death of Elizabeth, was renewed by King James, by whom 
he was knighted ; that his arguments in Westminster Hall 
are reported both by Coke and Croke for the next nine 
years, till 16 12, when he was elevated to be judge of the 
Common Pleas. Three years after, he was appointed chan- 
cellor of Charles, Prince of Wales. Four years he sat and 
judged with much success, and then died suddenly at Ken- 
dall, county of Westmoreland, August, 16 16, while on the 
summer circuit. He was buried there, and has a monument 
in the Kendall church." 1 

1 Foss's Judges of Eng. ; History of Dudley Family, i. 44, note ; R. 
Thompson's Historical Essay on the Magna Charta, 197, 198. 

I quote in full the account of the judge by Thomas Fuller, written 
in the seventeenth century, as it appears in Fuller's History of the 
Worthies of England: " Sir Augustine Nicolls, son to Thomas Nicolls, 
Sergeant at Law, was born at Eckton in this County (Northampton). 
Now according to the rigour of our fundamental premises, he cometh 
not within our cognizance under this title, yet his merit will justify us 
in presenting his character. 

" He was bred in the study of the Common Law, wherein he attained 
to such knowledge that Queen Elizabeth made him a King James his 
own Sergeant ; whence he was freely preferred one of the Judges of the 
Common Pleas ; I say freely King James commonly called him ' the 
Judge that would give no money.' 

" Not to speak of his moral qualifications and subordinate abilities, 
he was renowned for his special judiciary endowments ; patience to 
hear both parties all they could say, a happy memory, a singular saga- 
city to search into the material circumstances ; exemplary integrity, 
even to the rejection of gratuities after judgment given. 

" His forbearing to travail on the Lord's day wrought a reformation 
on some of his own Order. He loved plain and profitable preaching; 
being wont to say, ' I know not what you call Puritanical sermons ; but 
they come nearest to my conscience.' 



1598-1616] COURT OF COMMON PLEAS 27 

The exalted position of Judge Nicolls and his eminent 
judicial endowments are assured. And it goes far in aiding 
us to determine the powers and qualities of Dudley, that this 
able judge, who was educated to appreciate the qualifica- 
tions and fitness of men, employed Dudley as his clerk. We 
shall have occasion hereafter to notice in the documents 
and letters of Dudley the qualities ascribed to him in com- 
position by Mather. 1 

It must, on the other hand, always be accounted good 
fortune on the part of Dudley, and creditable to his discern- 
ment and incorruptibility, that in the midst of so much wick- 
edness in high places he made choice of such a friend and 
patron as Judge Nicolls, of whom it could be said freely 
that he was of "exemplary integrity, even to the rejection 
of gratuities after judgment given." And by King James 
he was commonly and freely called " the judge that would 
give no money." This was about the time that the Lord 
Chancellor of England, Sir Francis Bacon, was found guilty 
of bribery of the most flagrant sort. 

It would be difficult indeed to overestimate the effect upon 
Dudley of association with such a lawyer and upright judge 
of the Court of Common Pleas, in and about Westminster, at 
that eventful period in English history when many of the 
leading cases in the common law were tried by great mas- 
ters like Coke, as precedents to guide the succeeding gener- 
ations of jurists; and also of being, year after year, at the 
very heart and centre of the religious and political agitations 
of that remarkable period, when and where the doctrine of 
the Divine Right of Kings was entering upon its life-and- 
death contest with that modern teaching that government 

" The speech of Caesar is commonly known, ' Oportet Imperatarem 
stantem mori ; ' which Bishop Jewell altered, and applyed to himself, 
' Decet Episcopum conscionantem mori ; ' of this man it may be said, 
' Judex mortuus est Jura dans,' dying in his calling as he went the 
Northern Circuit; and hath a fair monument in Kendall church in 
Westmoreland." 

1 Sutton-Dudleys, 25. 



28 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. hi 

is by the consent of the governed ; which latter doctrine 
was only the individualism, including the right of private 
judgment, of the Reformation, transferred to the domain of 
politics. It is simply the Christian view of the great value 
and importance of each individual soul both in religion and 
politics. Puritanism was both the cause and effect of this 
sort of agitation. 

There were other scarcely less wonderful things happen- 
ing in that same little city of London, containing only at 
that time about one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants. 
King James's translation of the Bible was being made in the 
Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey. Francis Bacon, 
who ranks in the very first order of genius in the history of 
the English-speaking people, was effecting in science a revo- 
lution which will always be regarded among the highest 
achievements of the human intellect ; while at the Globe and 
Blackfriars theatres were being produced by Shakspere and 
played, with him as an actor, the most powerful and com- 
plete dramas which have appeared in any language. 

Shakspere must have been a familiar personage, well 
known by name at least to Dudley, and doubtless often seen 
by him on the streets of London. The city was small ; most 
persons knew by sight every notable person. Dudley is not 
believed to have yet become so subdued by Puritanism as 
to look upon amusements as dangerous which were furnished 
with great historic teachings, or exhibited human passion 
under proper social limitations. It might have been other- 
wise after 1630, when he was a leading Puritan emigrant. 
There were no newspapers and few books, and the plays 
of Shakspere must have then had an immense attraction, 
because of the newness of such historic dramas, and because 
his associations and family and his own terse and compre- 
hensive style of composition leads one at once to think that 
Dudley of all persons would delight in those marvelous 
works of genius, until his religious prejudice, caught up from 
the age in which he lived and the air which he breathed, 
might question their usefulness. 



1598-1616] DUDLEY AND WESTMINSTER HALL 29 

The mind of Dudley was both capacious and retentive, 
and this review of the larger influences operating with con- 
centrated force during the years of early manhood will help 
to connect and interpret the few and scattered particulars of 
his life, and furnish us with an explanation of many matters 
in his subsequent career. 

There are many ancient historic buildings which to-day 
in our walks about London attract our earnest attention, 
because within their antiquated walls the greatest scenes 
and events in the annals of our mother country have been 
enacted. Thomas Dudley knew them thoroughly. West- 
minster Abbey is, for example, the Walhalla of England, 
under whose protecting roof repose her great men who have 
filled history with their deeds and the earth with their re- 
nown. Its beautiful chapter house became the Parliament 
house of England in the thirteenth century, and thence down 
to the dissolution of the religious orders. 

Westminster Hall * is another, with the largest and grand- 
est deeply and beautifully framed timber roof in the world, 
dating from 1397, and the Hall itself from William Rufus. 
Here is indeed hallowed ground. All of the great men in 
English history for the last eight hundred years have paced 
to and fro within its glorious walls. Here the British sov- 
ereigns have held their coronation feasts. Here David of 
Scotland and John of France were entertained in their cap- 
tivity by the chivalrous Edward III. And beneath this 
far-famed roof the noblest and bravest men of our race have 
nerved themselves against bitter fate and the edicts of in- 
exorable despots. Where shall we find worthier martyrs 
than Sir William Wallace ; the wise and good Sir Thomas 
More ; the noble-minded Lord Protector Somerset ; Lord 

1 The court-room of the Court of Common Pleas was entered from 
Westminster Hall, by a door on the west side nearly half way down the 
hall. Dudley probably passed here daily for many years with Judge 
Nicolls, always excepting vacations and the times they were on the 
circuits. The picture of the court-room is the best attainable, the per- 
sons as seen in it are caricatures. 



3 o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. in 

William Russell ; and the great democratic hero and patriot, 
Algernon Sidney ? 

The Temple Church, completed in 1185, with its nine 
monuments of Templars of the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies ; and the monument of Robert de Ross, one of the 
barons to whom England owes Magna Charta, is also mem- 
orable in the annals of London and of the nation, and, de- 
scending from hoary antiquity, has long survived destruction 
and decay. The same is true of several old churches and 
buildings in the city. 

But Father Thames is older than these, yet with less 
vestige of age, upon whose banks Dudley wandered in the 
morning, at evening, or floated often upon its tide. Its 
waters were then more limpid, its shores more green, but it 
still keeps its youth and its identity. How often at West- 
minster, at Temple Gardens, at Richmond Hill, Coopers 
Hill, or at Windsor, he visited its winding shores ! 

Dudley viewed these historic piles, sacred temples, and 
this majestic river as we do; association with them reminds 
us of him ; he regarded them with the same admiration for 
Englishmen, and for their achievements in the world, which 
now kindles the enthusiasm of visitors from every zone who 
cherish a sincere affection for the land of their fathers. 



CHAPTER IV 

Dudley had in 1616, in which year his benefactor and 
friend Judge Nicolls died, reached the age of forty years, 
and was destined to remain in England fourteen more years, 
full of service and experience, before he led the great emi- 
gration to America. 

He was during most of this time the steward of Theophilus 
Clinton, the fourth Earl of Lincoln, at or near Sempringham, 
in Lincolnshire. Here his duties were varied, including 
the management of a large number of estates, the collec- 
tion of rents and other incomes. 

This was an eventful period in English history. Dudley 
was at Sempringham, in the midst of the most congenial 
religious and political associations. His mother's family is 
said, as we have noticed, to have inclined towards the Puri- 
tans. Judge Nicolls, who had no doubt influenced, as greatly 
as any one, his views and character, was in sympathy with 
the Puritans ; and the household of the fourth Earl of Lin- 
coln was the very hotbed of Puritanism and of resistance 
to kingly prerogative. Cambridge University was near by, 
at which the most advanced and revolutionary thought and 
doctrines were welcomed and disseminated broadcast ; while 
at Boston and in all the surrounding towns were to be found 
the most learned and able Puritan ministers, busily engaged in 
stirring the hearts of the people with political and religious 
principles which could only vindicate themselves against 
the tyranny of the Stuarts by a merciless civil war. " By 
the ministry of eminent scholars," Mather informs us, " as 
likewise of Mr. Hildersham, a man famously known all Eng- 
land over by his writings, it pleased the Almighty to season 
this Mr. Dudley's heart with the saving knowledge of the 



32 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. iv 

truth, so as ever after he became a serious Christian, a great 
lover of religion, and follower of those ministers that either 
preached, professed, or practiced it. And those ministers 
before named, of whom he was a constant hearer, being such 
as were then called Puritans or Nonconformists, Mr. Dudley- 
was himself also moulded into the knowledge and persuasion 
of that way, so as he became a zealous asserter thereof, but 
yet so as they were only sober, orthodox divines and Chris- 
tians, that he chose always to consort himself with ; for there 
was no man that more hated fanatics and wild opinionists than 
he did, notwithstanding he was so strenuous an oppugner of 
conformity and the ceremonies of the Church of England." 1 
Mather says also that " Mr. Dudley began to be well known 
in those places where his abode was, and by being a follower 
of Mr. Dod, he came into the knowledge of the Lord Say 
and Lord Compton, and other persons of quality, by whose 
means he was afterwards commended to the service of the 
Earl of Lincoln, who was then a young man and newly come 
into the possession of that earldom, with the lands and 
hereditaments that belonged thereunto." 2 Since Dudley 
had long been the page and attendant of Lord Compton, it 
does not seem probable that he stood in need of commenda- 
tion from Mr. Dod, but Mather never neglects an opportu- 
nity of exalting the importance of ministers. 

It seems, as we have already said, to be of the first signifi- 
cance, in our examination of the life and character of Dudley, 
to enter as much as we can into a knowledge of the people 
who were nearest to him. If we find them intelligent and 
at the head of advanced thought in the kindred subjects of 
religion and of politics, and that their social life was the best 
their age afforded, these discoveries will go far in determin- 
ing Dudley's real character. We strive, therefore, to give 
to these persons their true historic proportions, and then to 
measure him by them as standards ; to view him and his 
character and qualities as they viewed them, to discover to 
what extent and in what matters they reposed unwavering 
1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 209. 2 lb., 211. 



1616-28] FOURTH EARL OF LINCOLN 33 

confidence in him ; and thus, assisted by light reflected 
from them, we hope to present him as he was. We must 
also carefully and thoughtfully note the scenery and associa- 
tions of his daily life, and, so far as possible, the influence 
upon him of architecture, noble trees, wide moors, the fens, 
and sea. The Earl of Lincoln and his home of Sempring- 
ham are of preeminent importance, therefore, at this era in 
the life of Dudley. 

We learn from " Collins's Peerage " that the family of the 
Earl of Lincoln came in with William the Conqueror. It 
has recently been said of it, that " for seven hundred years 
it has poured out a scarcely intermitted succession of men 
who have spent their lives in the furtherance of England's 
greatness and policy. If it has never had a genius, it has 
also never produced a traitor ; and if it has never risen to, 
the lofty position of one or two of its rivals, it has not in its 
annals chapters which it would give estates to conceal." * 

The fourth Earl came to his title on the death of his fa- 
ther, January 15, 1618-19, at the age of nineteen, having 
been made a Knight of the Bath, along with Prince Charles 
(afterwards Charles I.), in 16 16. " He was a warm patriot 
on the parliament's side in the civil war, but, after the cap- 
tivity of the king, being inclined to moderation, was impris- 
oned and accused of treason by the usurping power of the 
army, which subverted, under Cromwell's direction, all the 
principles of the Constitution." 2 

He thus fell at this time into the hands of the army, and 
was with other Presbyterian peers impeached by the Com- 
mons, on the eighth day of September, 1647. The impeach- 
ment was, however, allowed to drop. He took no prominent 
part in the time of the Commonwealth, acquiescing in it. 
"He performed the office of carver at the coronation of 
Charles II." 3 

1 Sanford and Townsend's Great Governing Families of England, 
212. 

2 Winthrop, i. 34, Savage's note. 

3 Burke's Peerage, Newcastle Family, 1024. 



34 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. iv 

The first notable act of which we have a record in the 
life of the Earl of Lincoln was that " he became colonel of 
a regiment of foot and two troops of horse, which were a 
part of 12,000 men raised by Count Mansfeld in England 
to assist the Palatine in the 22d of James I. ; but neither 
France, Holland, nor Brabant allowing the troops to land on 
their shores, they were decimated by pestilence, and scarce 
one half reached Germany. His share in this expedition 
shows the political leanings of the Earl of Lincoln, the Puri- 
tans being deeply interested in the Palatine's enterprise ; but 
these were displayed more decidedly at the rupture between 
the king and parliament, when he espoused warmly the 
Puritan side, attaching himself to the Presbyterian party." : 

Mather informs us that "towards the latter end of King 
James his reign, when there was a press for soldiers to go 
over into Germany with Count Mansfeld, for the recovery of 
the Palatinate ; when the matter was first motioned, the Earl 
of Lincoln, who was zealously affected toward the Protestant 
interest, was strongly inclined to have gone over with the 
said earl or count, and should have been a colonel in the 
expedition, yet resolving not to go without Mr. Dudley's 
advice and company ; and therefore he sent down to Boston, 
in Lincolnshire, where Mr. Dudley then sojourned, to come 
forthwith to London, to order matters for this enterprise, 
and to be ready to accompany him therein. Mr. Dudley 
knew not how to refuse to wait upon his lordship, yet thought 
it best, as well for himself as for the earl, to take the best 
counsel he could, in a concern of so high a nature, not being 
unmindful of what Solomon said, 'with good advice make 
war.' Therefore he resolved with himself, in his passing up 
to London, to take Cambridge in his way, that he might 
advise with Dr. Preston about the design, who was a great 
statesman as well as a great divine, at least was conceived 
very well to understand the intrigues of the state in that 
juncture ; and he altogether dissuaded Mr. Dudley, or the 

1 Sanford and Townsend's Great Governing Families of England, 
208. 



1616-28] DUDLEY AND THE EARL OF LINCOLN 35 

earl, from having anything to do in that expedition, laying 
before them the grounds of his apprehensions on which he 
foresaw the sad event of the whole, as did really soon after 
come to pass. Dr. Preston, by reason of his frequent inter- 
course with the Earl of Lincoln's family, was free to discover 
to Mr. Dudley all that he knew, and he improved it thor- 
oughly to take off the earl's mind from the enterprise." 1 

The next year, 1626, the earl appeared in resistance to 
the forced loan demanded by Charles I., who, when he found 
that his subjects were averse to giving him money, concluded 
that he would make them lend instead, the result being the 
same, no payment being intended in either case. 2 

Dean Dudley says : " But the Earl of Lincoln's opposition 
to the loan was most conspicuous. According to his wont, 
he quickly took action in the matter, and probably by the 
aid of his former steward and counselor, Mr. Thomas Dud- 
ley, prepared and published an abridgment of the English 
statutes for free distribution. The fact of Dudley's having 
a hand in this proceeding, if not, indeed, being the chief ad- 
viser of it, is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, 
says the historian. . . . The king was not unacquainted 
with this proceeding of the earl, who had distributed his 

1 Life of Thomas Dudley, by Mather, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 
214, 215. 

2 It is related in the diary of Walter Yonge, from 1604 to 1628, that 
" December, 1626, the king having determined heretofore to demand 
of all his subjects so much money by way of loan as they are set in 
subsidy, viz., he that 's set at twenty pounds in subsidy to lend unto 
the king twenty pounds, the judges were urged to subscribe. They 
paid their money, but refused to subscribe the same as a legal course ; 
for which Sir Randall Crew, chief justice of England, had his patent 
taken from him, and he was displaced, Ter. Michael. 1626, anno 2 
Caroli. The privy council subscribed ; the lords and peers subscribed, 
all except fourteen, whereof six were earls, viz., Earl of Essex, Earl of 
Warwick, Earl of Clare, Earl of Huntington, Earl of Lincoln, and the 
Earl of Bolingbroke, being Lord St. John." (Diary of Walter Yonge, 
98 ; The John Forster's Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, 220, 
note 1.) The earl continued steadfast in this cause. (John Forster's 
Arrest of the Five Members, 37, note, in the year 1642.) 



36 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. iv 

book all over his county at least, if not over the whole 
realm ; and the royal power was rigorously used to suppress 
the abridgment, the great object of the king's resentment. 
. . . Theophilus was proceeded against in the Star Chamber, 
and was soon made a close prisoner in the Tower, where he 
was kept in custody for some years." 1 

The cherished seat of the Earl of Lincoln at this time, as 
we have already intimated, was the ancient, historic Sem- 
pringham. He possessed other estates, some of which will 
be named hereafter, because Dudley is supposed to have 
had the immediate care of them. The manor of Sempring- 
ham is distant about three miles southeast from Folking- 
ham. The village of Sempringham is noted in the monastic 
annals of England as the birthplace of St. Gilbert de Sem- 
pringham, who founded a novel religious order, indeed the 
only English order, and settled it at his native place. 

St. Gilbert lived to be 106 years old, and to see thirteen 
monasteries erected, in which were 700 men and 1300 
women. So noted did the order of the Gilbertines become 
that, in the reign of Edward I., Vincilian, daughter of Llew- 
ellyn, King of Wales, was a nun of the convent of Sempring- 
ham. 2 

In Gilbert's time the land to the east of Sempringham was 

1 History of Dudley Family, i. 57, 58. 

2 St. Gilbert was lord of the manor of Sempringham and rector of 
the parish. The Gilbertine was the only purely English order ever 
established. Sempringham Priory was always considered the chief 
house of the order, and was the place in which all their grand chapters 
were held. It grew and flourished for nearly four hundred years. 

When Thomas a Becket fled from the anger of Henry II., in 1164, 
he was accompanied by two monks of Sempringham, and was received 
(in disguise) at various Gilbertine houses, for which acts St. Gilbert was 
summoned to appear at Westminster for high treason. He was, how- 
ever, shortly released and returned to Sempringham. 

King Henry afterwards entertained an almost superstitious reverence 
for Gilbert. He attributed to his prayers the prosperity of his kingdom 
and his general success. And after Gilbert's death the king exclaimed, 
" Verily I knew that he was passed away, and my misfortunes have 
found me out now that he is no longer present." 




SIDE DOOR, SAINT ANDREW'S CHURCH 



1616-28] SEMPRINGHAM 37 

one vast, dismal, dreary, dangerous swamp which extended 
northward to Lincoln, eastward to the sea, and southward to 
Spalding, Crowland, Peterborough, and Ely. But through 
the skill and energy of the inmates of the monasteries sit- 
uated in these fens, and their dependents, supplemented by 
the superior engineering ability of later days, these fenny 
swamps have become some of the most fertile land in the 
kingdom. It was in these swamps that the last stand of 
the Saxon against the Norman took place under Hereward, 
Lord of Bourne. 1 

Every semblance of a house has long since vanished. The 
old Church of St. Andrew's, however, remains among the 
graves of the monks and the nuns, and the desolation of 
their home, preserving at least some of the features upon 
which they gazed. 

Through that magnificent doorway which is yet in the 
south side, almost as perfect as when it left the workman's 
hand, many a time has passed the good St. Gilbert at the 
head of his chapter ; and those fine old fir doors, so splen- 
didly ornamented with iron scrolls, have closed upon them 
while they worshiped or deliberated upon the business of 
their order. How often, also, during many years they have 
closed upon the noble earls of Lincoln, upon Isaac Johnson 
and Lady Arbella, upon Governor Thomas Dudley and his 
family ! 

1 Charles Kingsley's Hereward, the Last of the English; Hist, of 
the County of Lincoln, ii. 285; Architectural Reports, ii. 138, also xi. 
1 1 and xiv. 1 79. 

At the dissolution of the monasteries the inmates of Sempringham 
all dispersed, and their house was given by Henry VIII. to Edward, 
Lord Clinton, who built a beautiful mansion out of its ruins. Lord 
Clinton was greatly distinguished as admiral of the fleet at the victory 
of Musselburgh, on the coast of Scotland, in 1547. He was created 
Lord High Admiral in June, 1551, and the first Earl of Lincoln in 
May, 1572. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald, Earl of Kil- 
dare, the far-famed Geraldine, the heroine of the verses of Thomas 
Howard, the accomplished Earl of Surrey. (Chambers's Ency. of Eng. 
Lit., i. 46.) 



38 THOMAS DUDLEY . [ch. iv 

There is not a road within two or three fields of the 
church, and the glory of Sempringham long ago departed. 
It is now in the midst of a country of green fields, tree- 
lined hedgerows, with here and there, above the level land- 
scape of redeemed fenlands, the tower of one of those grand 
Norman churches for which the county is famous, each 
worthy to be the cathedral of a diocese, and each with its 
red-tiled hamlet nestling near to it, undoubtedly little altered 
in itself or its surrroundings for five hundred years. 

The Sempringham Church of St. Andrew's was entered 
by Dudley, when, according to Mather, he said, " Now I 
must return to the church to hear Dr. Preston," who then 
preached before the Earl of Lincoln. 1 

We have already noticed what influence Dr. Preston had, 
both with the Earl of Lincoln and with Dudley, in the matter 
of the proposed expedition to the Palatinate. Here we are 
able to judge of them by their relations with so eminent a 
man, and from their wisdom in seeking his learned counsel. 
It adds to our high opinion of both the Earl of Lincoln and 
of Mr. Dudley, that they were satisfied with nothing inferior 
to the opinions of the greatest and best persons of their pe- 
riod, for this at once reveals their own quality of character. 
It has been said by some one that we cannot appreciate with 
enthusiasm a great work of literature or of art unless we 
have in ourselves the same qualities in a degree which the 
composer possessed. It is quite evident that our estimate 
of great qualities in men depends upon what we are. 

Dr. Preston, D. D., was a fellow of Queens College, Cam- 
bridge ; later chaplain to Prince Charles, Master of Emanuel 
College. And here he was preaching in St. Andrew's Church 
(which, standing alone, still overlooks the fens) the doc- 
trines and heresy of John Calvin over the sacred ashes of St. 
Gilbert, while the same ancient vaulted roof, the identical 
antique arches and Norman pillars, reverberate his words 
and accents as freely as when, centuries before, they had 
resounded the voice of him who sleeps between the altars of 
1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 213. 



1616-28] ESTATES OF THE EARL OF LINCOLN 39 

the Virgin and St. Andrew, at the east end of the church, 
undisturbed by mutations of doctrine and faith. 

But the change was broad and unconfined throughout the 
land. Thomas Carlyle tells us that " already (in 1624) either 
in conscious act or in clear tendency, the far greater part of 
the serious Thought and Manhood of England had declared 
itself Puritan." 1 

The Nonconformists were certainly in the ascendency in 
Lincolnshire and the neighboring counties. The thralldom 
in which the minds and hearts of the masses had been held 
for centuries was being dissolved by the swift and perpetual 
diffusion of a new light into souls aroused by long-suffering 
to welcome and use it. 

It would be of great service to us if we knew the extent of 
the property and estates which were under the care of Dud- 
ley as steward of the Earl of Lincoln. We fortunately do 
know the names of the estates which descended with the 
title to the earl's father, the third Earl of Lincoln, and they 
were quite likely included under the stewardship of Dudley. 2 

Mather has left to us a very brief statement of the dif- 
ficulties which Dudley encountered as steward of the Earl of 
Lincoln, and they seem to have been great, and to have been 
heroically struggled with, and successfully overcome, by him. 

Mather's statement is that "the grandfather of this present 

1 Carlyle's Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, i. 48 ; Froude's Bun- 
yan, chap. ii. 

2 They were " the manor of Aslackby and Temple Aslackby, the 
castle and manor of Tattershall, the house and site of the monastery of 
Sempringham, with the manor of Sempringham and the advowson of 
the church, the manor of Billingborough, rectory of the church, and 
advowson of the vicarage, the manors of East and West Claughton, 
the honor, castle, and manor of Folkingham, and manor of Thirking- 
ham, and advowson of the churches, the manors of Thorp and Kirby 
Byrne, Roughton, Marton-juxta-Thornton, Conisby, Billingay, Walcott- 
juxta-Billingay, Burthorp, and Kirksted, alias Crested." (Sanford and 
Townsend's Great Governing Families of England, 207, 208.) 

Dean Dudley visited the manor of Tattershall in 1850, and obtained 
valuable items from the old parish register, but nothing concerning 
Dudley or his family. (History of Dudley Family, i. 53, 57.) 



4 o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. iv 

earl was called Henry, who, being a bad husband," that is 
to say, a feeble economist, " had left his heirs under great 
entanglements, and his son, named Thomas, had never been 
able to wind out of that labyrinth of debts contracted by his 
father, so that all the difficulties were now devolved upon 
Theophilus, the grandchild, who was persuaded therefore to 
entertain Dudley as his steward to manage his whole estate, 
who, though it were so involved with many great debts, 
amounting to near twenty thousand pounds, yet by his pru- 
dent, careful, and faithful management of the demesnes of 
that family, he in a few years found means to discharge all 
those great debts, wherein the young earl was so engulfed 
that he saw little hope of ever wading through them all. 
But with God's blessing on Mr. Dudley's pains and industry, 
he was soon freed of them." 1 

Mather continues on p. 214 : "The earl, finding him so to 
be, would never, after his acquaintance with him, do any 
business of moment without Mr. Dudley's counsel of advice." 

Dudley came to America in 1630, and the earl lived thirty- 
seven years after that without much, if any, of his counsel 
or advice. These words of Mather are nevertheless very 
significant. They present Dudley in his true character ; 
they show plainly the estimation in which he was then held 
by the Earl of Lincoln, who had tried and proved him so 
thoroughly as to leave no doubt of his integrity and ability. 
He was then, as he was always and everywhere subsequently, 
a " trusty pillar," a firm and reliable support and guide, in 
business, in church, and in state. 

How truly Dudley was a man directed by conscience and 
guided by conviction in the ordinary affairs of life, as well as 
in greater matters of state later in his career, is shown in the 
following extract from Mather: 2 "Some of those that over- 
looked his [Dudley's] manuscripts found such an expression 
as this, not long after he left the earl's family : ' I found the 
estate of the Earl of Lincoln so much and so much in debt, 
which I have discharged, and have raised the rents so many 
1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 212. 2 lb., 214. 




SAINT ANDREW'S CHURCH, AT SEMPRINGHAM, LINCOLNSHIRE 



1616-28] DUDLEY AS STEWARD 41 

hundreds per annum. God will, I trust, bless me and mine 
in such a manner as Nehemiah sometime did, appealing unto 
the judgment of God, that he knew the hearts of all men, 
that he had walked in the integrity of his heart before God, 
to the full discharge of the duty of his place.' " 

We know nothing of the pecuniary resources of the earl 
in the hands of Dudley, aside from the estates above men- 
tioned, with which he achieved this great success. We are 
not instructed as to the details of the claims, or how they 
were liquidated. We do know that others tried to free the 
estates from debt, and failed to do it. We know that the 
debts amounted to about $100,000, which required a net 
profit every year of more than $10,000 above and beyond 
payments of interest, household and other expenses, to attain 
to the crowning achievement in this management. We learn 
also that in this time he not only discharged these mountains 
of debt, but that he did greater things, for he raised the rents 
many hundreds of pounds per annum, and sent the earl and 
his estates on their way rejoicing in prosperity, and yet "he 
had all the time walked in the integrity of his heart before 
God." If Dudley had never accomplished more than this, 
he would have been entitled to a very worthy place among 
business men. Our surest measure of his effort is found in 
the opinions of his contemporaries. The most trustworthy 
light comes to us from their judgment, shown both in their 
words and actions. They surely accounted his success to 
be very extraordinary. Perhaps one of the most marvelous 
features in it, after all, was that he acquired such an ascend- 
ency over the fourth Earl of Lincoln that he allowed him to 
limit and restrain his expenditures within the lines of pru- 
dence, and taught him the secret of self-restraint, self-sacri- 
fice, and economy, and in it and through it all retained the 
earl's abiding confidence in his ability and integrity, together 
with the highest esteem for the excellent qualities of his 
character, and a due and constant deference to him and his 
opinions until his departure across the Atlantic. 

Dudley was intrusted even, as we have already observed, 



42 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. iv 

with the delicate and diplomatic service of "procuring a 
match between the daughter of the Lord Say and this Theo- 
philus, Earl of Lincoln, who was so wise, virtuous, and every- 
way so an accomplished lady, that she proved a great bless- 
ing to the whole family." 1 It is by no means certain whether 
it was the earl or the steward who first discovered the per- 
fections of Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, but the over- 
ture was made by the steward, who was excluded from the 
fortune of John Alden in " The Courtship of Miles Standish." 
It is an impressive episode in history that Dudley, long 
years after this event, conferred enduring immortality upon 
the countess by writing to her a letter, from his desolate and 
comfortless home in this American wilderness, which will 
be read thoughtfully, tenderly, and gratefully by citizens of 
the United States forever, while the other brilliant women, 
her companions in society, are forgotten, — a letter which 
Young declares to be " the most interesting as well as au- 
thentic document in our early annals ; " 3 while Drake says, 
in the " History and Antiquities of Boston : " " With this 
paragraph ends the invaluable letter of Dudley. No docu- 
ment in the annals of Boston will compare in importance 
with it, and no one can successfully study this period of its 
history without it." 3 

1 Mather, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 212. 

2 Chron., 340. 3 Page 122, note. 



CHAPTER V 

Sempringham had a very close and intimate connection 
with the great emigration to America in 1630, which, al- 
though not the first, was one of the most important. We 
have, therefore, most excellent reason to cherish the home 
of St. Gilbert as one of those memorable cradles in our old 
English home where a great undertaking was thought out, 
nurtured, and matured in the minds of the founders of the 
Massachusetts Colony, and whence those seminal ideas of 
liberty and equality taught at Geneva and in the Nether- 
lands, and now diffused throughout England, took their 
departure for this continent, to become vital and fundamen- 
tal in the Constitution and laws of the greatest and most 
enlightened nation which exists. 

The Earl of Lincoln himself, as we have observed, had 
resisted forced loans and the tyranny of Charles I. He 
had suffered loss of property and caste ; he had endured im- 
peachments and imprisonment in the Tower, and later the 
insolence of a despotic Parliament. And Sempringham, like 
the cave of Adullam, became a resort for those who dared 
to think and speak the words of freedom, of soberness, and 
reason. 

Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, wended his 
way thither. He says in his "Bloudy Tenent yet more 
Bloudy : " " Master Cotton may call to mind, that the dis- 
cusser [Roger Williams] riding with himself [viz., with John 
Cotton] and one other of precious memory, Master Hooker, 
to and from Sempringham, presented his arguments from 
Scripture, why he durst not join with them in their use of 
Common Prayer." * We can easily divine the purpose of 
1 Pub. Narr. Club, iv. 65. 



44 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. v 

this pilgrimage to Sempringham. Dudley, in his letter to 
the Countess of Lincoln, has furnished a motive for this and 
of all similar visits by other New England planters. 

We like to dwell upon the quaint picture of these three 
great historic New England worthies, the founders of almost 
as many states, riding together across the plains and fens of 
Lincolnshire, disagreeing as they did, in all their subsequent 
lives, about doctrine and the meaning of Scripture. And, 
strange to say, no man can assure us whence they came to 
Sempringham and whither they went when they departed. 
It is fortunately unimportant. 

Dudley says in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, not 
for her information, because she knew it already, but for the 
instruction of emigrants : " Touching the Plantation which 
we here have begun, it fell out thus. About the year 1627, 
some friends, being together in Lincolnshire, fell into dis- 
course about New England, and the planting of the Gospel 
there ; and after some deliberation we imparted our reasons, 
by letters and messages, to some in London and the west 
country, where it was likewise deliberately thought upon, 
and at length with often negotiation so ripened, that in the 
year 1628 we procured a patent." * 

Governor John Winthrop, "the father of Massachusetts," 
was drawn to Sempringham as well as the other planters. 
The following letter from him is excellent and to the 
point : — 

"July 28: 1629. My Bro : Downing & myselfe ridinge 
into Lincolnshire by Ely, my horse fell under me in a bogge 
in the fennes, so as I was allmost to the waiste in water ; 
but the Lorde preserved me from further danger. Blessed 
be his name." 

The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop remarks that this letter 
indicates, " beyond a question, that Winthrop and Downing 
were on their way to Sempringham to visit Isaac Johnson, 
and consult with him about the great Massachusetts enter- 
prise. There is a letter, from Johnson to Downing, found 
1 Young's Chron., 309. 



1625-30] THE MASSACHUSETTS ENTERPRISE 45 

among Winthrop's papers, dated just twenty days before, 
inviting them to do so." J 

We cannot think, upon an examination of Mr. Johnson's 
letter, that they made the journey to Sempringham solely 
to consult with him. The whole household, including many 
members, like a busy hive, was thoughtfully and deeply 
pondering immediate emigration to America ; each one who 
was not about to depart was full of solicitude for the impend- 
ing fate of those who were. They were studying and reflect- 
ing upon the loss of much that was as dear to them as life 
itself, by this separation from the home of their childhood. 
They were thinking of perils by sea, of perils in the wilder- 
ness, of manifold privations, of furious wild beasts, of un- 
known diseases, of merciless savages ; all of these dangers, 
and many others, kept them anxious and perplexed by day, 
and sleepless by night And still, above all this solicitude 
concerning personal safety and comfort, the thoughts of a 
land of freedom to worship God, a country where a new 
government might arise, divested of the worn-out, cumber- 
some systems descending from earlier and darker ages, took 
possession of their souls, and made them anxious and restless 
to be on their journey " Westward," whither "the course of 
empire takes its way." 

How great the interests of this enterprise were in this 
family and household will appear if we carefully note the 
individuals who were in it, and the parts they acted in the 
early history of Massachusetts. No other family is so con- 
spicuous. 

Mather says the " times began to look black and cloudy 
upon the Nonconformists, of which Mr. Dudley was one to 
the full." 2 Isaac Johnson, the brother-in-law of the earl, 
gave in his name for the expedition to the American wilder- 

1 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, i. 304, 2d ed. ; Mass. Hist. 
Coll., 4th series, vi. 29. This was probably Emanuel Downing, who 
was of the Inner Temple, and married a sister of Governor Winthrop. 
(Young's Chron., 97.) 

2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 216. 



46 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. v 

ness. He was the largest financial adventurer. His saintly- 
wife, the beautiful Lady Arbella Johnson, whose praises have 
been sung during two and one-half centuries, joined him to 
take her full share of privations and sufferings in founding 
this nation. She had been tenderly reared at Sempringham, 
and most of her cherished memories of childhood and youth 
clustered about it. It is quite possible that the old church 
which remains was the place of her marriage ; we are sure 
that it was her place of worship. 

Hubbard says that " she came from a paradise of plenty 
and pleasure, which she enjoyed in the family of a noble 
earldom, into a wilderness of wants," and that " she took 
New England in her way to heaven." She arrived in Amer- 
ica in June, 1630, and died in the following August, and 
her husband survived her only one month. 

Lady Susan Humphrey also was a sister of the Earl of 
Lincoln. She must have left her native land with deep mis- 
givings in 1632, following with a forlorn hope her sister 
Arbella to her last earthly abode. She and her husband 
came with their children. Her husband, John Humphrey, 
was one of the six original patentees to whom the grant of 
Massachusetts Bay was made by the Council of Plymouth. 
He was the first deputy governor of Massachusetts. He 
was also an original patentee of the Colony of Connecticut. 
They returned to England in 1641 with a dark shadow on 
their lives by reason of a cruel misfortune which overtook 
their little daughters in America. 1 

Lady Frances Gorges, wife of John Gorges, was another 
sister of the Earl of Lincoln, whose husband had large 
landed interests in New England even prior to the emigra- 
tion of 1630. 

The eminent William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, 
greatly distinguished in the Revolution, was connected with 
this family by marriage, for his daughter Bridget was the 
accomplished Countess of Lincoln, who presided at Sem- 
pringham through all this stormy period in English annals. 
1 Lewis and Newhall's Hist, of Lynn, 152. 




INTERIOR OF SAINT ANDREW'S CHURCH 



1625-30] CALVINISM 47 

He was a large proprietor in New England and the West 
Indies. Saybrook in Connecticut takes a part of its name 
from his title. He intimated to the government of Massa- 
chusetts that he would come there to reside if only the 
hereditary dignity of a peerage was permitted to him. It 
was politely declined, and he remained in England and took 
an active part in the struggle for freedom. 1 

Mr. Young says, " This family of Lincoln had a more 
intimate connection with New England settlements, and 
must have felt a deeper interest in their success than any 
other noble house in England." Cotton Mather describes 
the family in "Magnalia," i. 126, as religious, and " the best 
family of any nobleman then in England." 

It attaches still more strongly the beginning and devel- 
opment of New England to this ancient Sempringham, 
and to this illustrious house of Lincoln, that Dudley and his 
distinguished son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet, were both at 
different times stewards during many years in this home, 
and subsequently were both a long time magistrates and 
governors of Massachusetts. 

All things had seemed to be in preparation for many 
generations for this very hour. The intellectual, religious, 
social, and political revolution in Holland ; the great move- 
ment of spiritual and intellectual life culminating in the Re- 
formation ; the vitalizing force of Calvinism, charged with 
Christian power, which had everywhere manifested itself in 
Europe, and later in America, as above all other religious 
teaching fruitful in individual liberty (although its doctrines 
were harsh and its methods narrow), — were each and all 
conspicuous in human progress. Liberty has flourished 
most where Calvinism has predominated. 

This doctrine took a deep and permanent hold of the 
minds of the people who inhabited that region of country 
north of London on the eastern side of England, including 
Lincolnshire. That territory was always, from the time of 

1 Bancroft's Hist, of U. S., i. 385 ; Hutchinson's Hist., 42 ; Palfrey's 
History of New England, i. 389, note. 



48 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. v 

the Reformation, inhabited by bold, independent, thoughtful, 
and industrious citizens. Henry VIII. found Lincolnshire 
independent and its people thoughtful, for he called them 
"the most brute and beastlie of the whole realm." 

They were in close proximity to the Netherlands, where 
spiritual and intellectual freedom had achieved their most 
signal triumphs, and where were to be found the finest 
manufactured fabrics, the most skilled artisans in the world, 
and the most perfect and scientific agriculture known at that 
time. Holland was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries, at the head of the commerce of the world. It was later 
the asylum and retreat of brave people of every race who 
had political or religious ideas dangerous to prerogatives of 
tyrants, or hostile to so-called divine rights to rule in church 
or state, and of individuals who felt their personal responsi- 
bility to God, but none to priest or pope. 

Englishmen crossed the Channel ; they fought in the Low 
Countries side by side with the soldiers of the Netherlands 
in the good old Protestant cause ; they brought, on their 
return to England, the invigorating spirit from the land of 
their sojourn. In addition to this, the white sails of com- 
merce, then as now, were carrying the light from more 
favored nations to those which sit in darkness. 

And, in turn, "the Flemings (in 1570) crowded across the 
Channel in tens of thousands, and brought with them their 
arts and industries, and while the rich looked to the East 
for the silk and satins . . . the artisans, the laborers, and 
the farmers were clothed from the looms which had been 
brought from Ghent and Bruges to their own doors." 1 

" The low districts about the H umber and the Wash, 
reclaimed from the ocean by the Hollanders, were always 
hotbeds of Nonconformity : here was the original Boston ; 
near by was Cambridge, the home of Puritanism." 2 



2 Douglas Campbell's The Puritans in Hoi., Eng., and Amer., i. 495; 
Fourth Earl of Bedford, Lodge's Portraits, iv. 299 ; Carlyle's Cromwell, 
i. 89; Chamb. Ency., vi. 139. 



1625-30] ST. BOTOLPH CHURCH, BOSTON 49 

Men from the other side of the Channel educated the 
English in manufactures. They were descended from an 
ancestry which for generations had resisted the sea in the 
Low Countries, and they helped to redeem and reclaim the 
fens of Lincolnshire and its neighborhood. Devout people 
reared aloft in 1309 the tower of St. Botolph, the parish 
church of Boston, two hundred and ninety-one feet above 
the pavement, resembling the majestic tower of the Cathe- 
dral of Antwerp, suggestive at least, almost prophetic, of the 
wonderful service which the emigrants from the Netherlands 
would render centuries later in delivering from the thralldom 
of the sea these wide fields, rich now with harvests, and 
picturesque with thousands of sheep and cattle grazing 
peacefully over their broad acres ; because, whenever the 
eyes of these del vers and dike-builders, during many centu- 
ries, turned to the tower, visible forty miles over land or 
sea, it smote upon their hearts with a message of home, of 
childhood and youth, of early loves and early friends. 

Dudley retired to Boston 2 at one time, and made it his 
home, that he might listen in this very church to the preach- 
ing of the Rev. John Cotton, 2 who afterwards for a long period 
was the most noted preacher in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dudley dwelt later, probably for a short time only, near to 
Isaac Johnson, at Clipsham in Rutlandshire ; but Sempring- 
ham, fifteen miles away, was always the centre of his thought 
and interest. Nothing of importance, Mather assures us, 
could be done at Sempringham without him, whether it were 
to direct an expedition that he and the earl might go in two 
days from Sempringham to the Hague, " by reason of an in- 
terview of some great princes that were then to be present," 
and there by his tact and judgment to preserve the earl 
from misfortune, or to render to him and to his estate, day 
after day, invaluable and most highly appreciated services at 
Sempringham. 

We have sought to show the environment in which Dud- 

1 Palfrey, i. 367, note 3 ; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 216. 

2 See Letter of Dudley to Cotton, p. 257 of this volume. 



5 o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. v 

ley's career was set, the society and people most influential 
in shaping his course in life. He possessed the friendship 
and the confidence of Judge Nicolls, of Lord Compton, of 
Lord Saye and Sele, of the Earl of Lincoln, Isaac Johnson, 
John Humphreys, and a great number of the most eminent 
and learned ministers of his time. 

These friends were the friends of, and associates with, 
Cromwell, Hampden, and Pym. They were, take them for 
all in all, among the ablest men of their period. Many of the 
great soMiers and heroes of the Commonwealth came from 
this neighborhood ; Cromwell, Milton, Hampden, and Fair- 
fax, for example. The Ironsides of Cromwell were, it is said, 
from the region of the fens. This vicinity was as prolific in 
heroes and armed men as if Jason had sown the fens with 
dragons' teeth. 

We have felt particularly desirous to establish in the mind 
of the reader, as firmly as possible, the character of Dudley 
in England in private life and among his friends and asso- 
ciates, because, if we are quite sure that we have found his 
leading characteristics, and that they were sound and con- 
sistent year after year up to fifty-four (the age at which he 
emigrated), we may feel very certain that the rest of his 
life was of the same general nature and course. This view 
is strengthened by the very firm intellectual and moral fibre 
and constitution of the man. He was strong and stable by 
his very nature, and not easily turned from a habit once fixed, 
or an opinion once carefully and thoughtfully made up, so 
that as we have known him in the past we shall find him to 
be in the future. What he was therefore in England, and 
what were his characteristics there, are very important, for 
the reason that in America we must depend upon descrip- 
tions of his doings sketched by political rivals, or by persons 
controlled, whether they knew it or not, by a personal or 
political bias. Dudley has not, as we have seen, written his 
own defense and explanation of matters and causes which are, 
and have been for more than two centuries, used to detract 
from his just fame and merit ; therefore it is with great satis- 



1616-25] LARGE EXPERIENCE OF DUDLEY 51 

faction and confidence that we look back upon a long life the 
other side of the sea, round, complete, and full, and every- 
where distinguished for ability, integrity, and wisdom, to aid 
us in doing substantial justice to his career in America. 
While we think of him as a man who adhered to his convic- 
tions, like St. Paul, Luther, or John Hampden, we are as- 
sured that he was kind of heart, and just to the rights of all 
persons. As we have seen, he was of "gentle blood," was 
long a page in the elegant home of Lord Compton, and must 
have been a master and a guide in the ways of polite society 
and accomplished manners. He was associated for years 
with a distinguished judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 
during which years Sir Edward Coke was chief justice of 
that very court. And it must have been his constant duty, 
as clerk, either himself to give expression to the opinions 
of the judge or to study them as given; in any event, he 
had ever before him justice between man and man, and the 
golden rule as his constant guide and inspiration. Here in 
this occupation he must have become well seasened with 
justice and mercy. His views of life had been early broad- 
ened by a sojourn in the army of Henry IV. His business 
life had been unusually successful. His social position had 
been all that could be desired. And with the advantage of 
great connection, of wide and varied observation in life, brim- 
ful of the best quality of experience in every direction, in his 
ripe mature age he joined the great emigration. "The past 
at least is secure." And the future will be like unto it. 

Dudley had no need to make a business adventure three 
thousand miles over the ocean. He was already, in England, 
retired from business, and was probably one of the most afflu- 
ent men in the colony during his lifetime. If the real indis- 
pensable things of life did not draw him from fatherland, 
from the culture and luxury of Old England in which he had 
been reared, what were the all-sufficient motives determining 
his future course ? 

Whether he had bread in England or not, there are greater 
things in this world than bread, although it is the staff of life. 



52 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. v 

" Man shall not live by bread alone." So soon as he was 
assured that the Massachusetts Charter would go to America 
with them, and that the possibilities of a regenerated and 
purified church and state lay before them, he consulted not 
flesh and blood but cast in his lot with the adventure. He 
risked in this comfortless enterprise not only himself and 
his property, but, what was far dearer to him, the lives and 
fortunes of his wife and five children, the oldest of whom, 
Samuel, was only twenty years of age. 1 

Mather no doubt stated the situation well when he said 
that "the times began to look black and cloudy upon the 
Nonconformists, of which Mr. Dudley was one to the full." 
These people were reasonably convinced that the only true 
and safe course was to break at once totally with the past, 
taking the best of everything that it had produced, and to 
transplant it on virgin soil beyond the sea, a glorious heritage 
for succeeding generations. It was now the way of least 
resistance. The king was glad to be rid of them, although 
it has been said and disputed that Cromwell and Hampden 
were detained and never came. 

Freedom to worship God was before them, in a Puritan 
English Church cleansed from all the defilements clinging 
to the ancient church through the dark periods of history. 
The Puritans, says Lowell, " were the most perfect incarna- 
tion of an idea the world has seen." They were leaving 
behind them the wornout and cast-off vesture of church 
and state, kingcraft and priesthood. 2 Behind them also were 
war-clouds, dark and ominous, charged with revolution, which 
was soon to drench the land in fraternal blood. 

Dudley had twenty-three wonderful years before him ; 
they were a glorious remnant of life, full of noble, self-sacri- 
ficing privations and sufferings, upon which he entered " with 
firmness in the right as God [gave him] to see the right," to 
secure the blessings of civil and religious liberty to posterity. 

There is a sadly sweet remembrance that lingers over all 

1 History of Dudley Family, i. 276. 

2 Quincy's Hist. Boston, 324. 



1625-30] DUDLEY INSPIRED BY PURITANISM 53 

of these ancient highways, these fens stretching far away 
to the sea, and over all the smiling tract of Lincolnshire and 
its surroundings, because it was in these sacred scenes that 
Thomas Dudley, the second governor of Massachusetts, 
thoughtfully and prayerfully, as he went to and fro, consid- 
ered the founding of the Colony of Massachusetts during 
the five years from 1625 to 1630. The scene is almost un- 
changed, except in the more highly cultivated fields ; there 
are the same church towers, roads, dwellings, the same vari- 
eties of birds and flowers. 1 

Here he wandered, while one great thought was slowly 
taking possession of him, — that his departure was at hand, 
and that never in all his life would he revisit these dear old 
ways and haunts, or see their like again.. 

1 Dudley was an executor of the will of Isaac Johnson, wherein he 
is mentioned as of Clipsham, in the county of Rutland, March, 1629, 
O. S., from which we conclude that he had removed from Boston, and 
was residing during his last days in England, near the home of Isaac 
Johnson and Lady Arbella. He may have been led to this in order 
to be helpful in closing up their affairs, preparatory to emigration." 
(Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d series, viii. 245.) 



CHAPTER VI 

Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, 
Ready to pass to the American strand. 

Herbert. 

The most important emigration to America which was 
ever made, and, it is sometimes said, which has ever been 
made in the history of the world, was about to be undertaken, 
and Dudley was to have a leading part in it, and in the 
colony. 

Mather says that, " when the enterprise for New England 
began to be set forth, Mr. Dudley embraced that opportunity, 
and so resolved to leave England and travel over the sea 
into the deserts of America, that there he might with other 
Nonconformists enjoy his liberty to the utmost of what he 
desired. Mr. Dudley was not among the first of them that 
embarked in the design for New England, which is the rea- 
son why he was not numbered among the patentees." 1 

There had been many attempts by the English before this 
period to found colonies on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, 
without success, and Mather attributes their failure to the 
fact that their design was to advance some " worldly inter- 
ests." He means, no doubt, such as to catch fish or to seek 
gold. 2 

He informs us also that good news from the Plymouth 
plantation " inspired the renowned Mr. White [Rev. John 
White], minister of Dorchester, to prosecute the settlement 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 216. 

2 Mather's Mag., i. 61. It has been said that, if gold had been found 
in New England and the cultivation of the soil and manufactures neg- 
lected, democracy would not have subsisted here. (Atlantic Monthly, 
lxxii. 816.) 



1630] EMIGRATION TO AMERICA 55 

of such another plantation here for the propagation of reli- 
gion. This good man engaged several gentlemen, about the 
year 1624, in this noble design ; and they employed a most 
religious, prudent, worthy gentleman, one Mr. Roger Conant, 
in the government of the place." He made choice of Salem 
as a refuge for the exiles of religion. Mr. Conant and his 
three companions were " the sentinels of Puritanism " in 
Massachusetts. 1 " This man was inspired, as it were, by some 
superior instinct," and thus made a beginning in 1626. 

The deed from the Council of Plymouth, in England, to 
Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcoat, 
John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whetcomb, 
bearing date March 19, 1628, conveyed the land extending 
three miles south of the river Charles and the Massachu- 
setts Bay, and three miles north of every part of the river 
Merrimac, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The 
grantees received as associates Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac 
Johnson, Matthew Cradock, Increase Nowell, Richard Bel- 
lingham, Theophilus Eaton, William Pynchon, and others." 2 

A royal charter was granted incorporating the Governor 
and Company of Massachusetts Bay, March 4, 1628 (29). 
But Endicott had gone in September, 1628, to Salem, Mass., 
with six vessels containing emigrants, supplies, cattle, and 
other needful things. They established at Salem a church 
by mutual covenant, with Skelton as pastor and Higginson 
as teacher, and sent men to begin another settlement at 
Charlestown. 

Dudley, after giving some account of the various former 
expeditions to Massachusetts to obtain fish and beaver, pro- 
ceeds to give his account of the colonization of that neigh- 
borhood, in which he himself took a great part. He says 
(as we have previously mentioned, p. 44) : " Touching the 
plantation which we here have begun, it fell out thus : About 
the year 1627, some friends, being together in Lincolnshire, 
fell into discourse about New England, and the planting of 

1 Bancroft's Hist. U. S., i. 339. 

2 Mather's Mag., i. 62, 63. 



56 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vi 

the gospel there ; and after some deliberation we imparted 
our reasons, by letters and messages, to some in London 
and the west country ; where it was likewise deliberately 
thought upon, and at length with often negotiations so 
ripened, that in the year 1628-29 we procured a patent from 
his Majesty for our planting between the Massachusetts Bay 
and Charles River on the south, and the river of Merrimac 
on the north, and three miles on either side of those rivers 
and bay ; as also for the government of those who did or 
should inhabit within that compass. And the same year we 
sent Mr. John Endicott [June, 1628] and some with him to 
begin a plantation, and to strengthen such as he should find 
there, which we sent thither from Dorchester 1 and some 
places adjoining. From whom the same year receiving 
hopeful news, the next year, 1629, we sent divers ships 
over, with about three hundred people, and some cows, goats, 
and horses, many of which arrived safely. 

" These, by their too large commendations of the country 
and the commodities thereof, invited us so strongly to go on 
that Mr. Winthrop, of Suffolk, (who was well known in his own 
country, and well approved here for his piety, liberality, wis- 
dom, and gravity,) coming in to us, we came to such resolu- 
tion that in April, 1630, we set sail from Old England with 
four good ships. And in May following eight more followed ; 
two having gone before in February and March, and two 
more following in June and August, besides another set out 
by a private merchant." 2 

It has been said that, " while all the forty counties of Eng- 
land were more or less represented among the emigrants to 
Massachusetts, the shires on the eastern side contributed far 
more than all the rest. It is estimated that two thirds of 
the American people (emigrants) came from these, one sixth 
from Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, and the remaining one 
sixth from all other parts of England." 3 

1 Young's Chron., 23-29. 

2 lb., 309-311. 

8 John Brown's Pilgrim Fathers of New England, 266. 



1630] WINCHESTER AND THE EMIGRANTS 57 

The spring of 1630 was an eventful season. A large 
number of people, amounting to about fifteen hundred per- 
sons, were contemplating a final departure to America. All 
through the months of January, February, March, and April 
these Puritan exiles were closing up their worldly affairs as 
if about to make their final adieu to this planet. They were 
collecting and thoughtfully considering what needful things , 
should be taken by them over the sea. In those March days 
they began to wend their way towards Southampton, the 
place of embarkation, whence ten years before the May- 
flower and the Speedwell had sailed for Plymouth, freighted 
with hopes of future years and with unmeasured destiny, for 
the Massachusetts Colony took inspiration from Plymouth. 

They would naturally pass in their journey ancient Win- 
chester, the old-time capital of the kingdom, the capital of 
the British, the Saxon, and the Norman kings, and the be- 
loved resort of English kings and queens until long after 
the departure of the Puritans to America. These Puritans 
have sometimes been spoken of as the rising and triumphant 
remnant of that Saxon race which, vanquished at the battle 
of Hastings under Harold, and in the fens of Lincolnshire, 
had returned to grind to powder in succeeding years the 
residue of the feudal system, with its oppressive tenures, 
and to preserve this continent from its baneful tyranny. 

Whether it meant anything to these proscribed people, 
who were then filing through the streets of the old capital, 
or not, it was fit and proper that they should pay their last 
reverent homage at the grave of Alfred the Great, 1 and at 
the resting-place of the other Saxon kings, before their with- 
drawal to plant on another continent that liberty denied to 
them at home, which their ancestors had struggled and 
died for, under the kings whose ashes were treasured up in 
yonder cathedral, and are still preserved as the heritage 
of the English-speaking nations. 2 

1 F. W. Farrar's Cathedrals of England, 278. 

2 And that they should remember that Alfred the Great " left behind 
him in his will, as an immortal legacy to his country, the sentiment — 






58 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vi 

They would find at Southampton, if they sought for it in 
the New Forest, the oak, then more than five hundred years 
old, which was said to have turned the arrow sped from the 
bow of Walter Tirel to the heart of William Rufus, the Nor- 
man king, August 2, 1100. "The arrow, by whomsoever 
shot, set England free from oppression such as she never 
felt before or after at the hand of a single man." 1 

There were four ships of the fleet ready, and they sailed 
from Southampton, March 22, 1630. Leaving behind the 
Mayflower, and six other ships to follow, they ran across 
the Southampton Water and the Solent to Cowes, on the 
Isle of Wight (the distance of an hour's sail by the steamer 
of to-day), and a week later, on March 29, again proceeded 
a little on their way. 

We are especially interested in the Arbella. She was a 
ship of three hundred and fifty tons, carrying twenty-eight 
guns and fifty-two men. Peter Melbourne was her master, 
and owned a share in her. The excellent and beautiful Lady 
Arbella Johnson, sister of the Earl of Lincoln, and her hus- 
band, Isaac Johnson, were on board this ship. Governor 
John Winthrop and two of his sons were passengers of the 
first importance, also Sir Richard Saltonstall, with three 
sons and two daughters ; the Rev. George Philips and wife ; 
William Coddington and wife, afterwards of Rhode Island ; 
Thomas Dudley, deputy governor of Massachusetts, with 
his wife, Dorothy Dudley, with one son, Samuel, and four 
daughters, — Anne, sixteen years old, the youthful bride of 
Simon Bradstreet, who was with her, and her sisters, Pa- 
tience, Sarah, and Mercy. 

As the Arbella moved over that extensive bay called 

how glorious from the heart of a great and victorious king ! — that ' it 
is just that the English should forever remain as free as their own 
thoughts.'" (Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places, Winchester, 177; 
Lappenberg's Hist, of Eng. under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, 99.) 

It is because these emigrants cannot be as free as their thoughts, 
in the kingdom once ruled over by Alfred the Great, that they are now 
making haste to bid farewell to the home of their ancestors. 

1 E. A. Freeman's Reign of William Rufus, i. 337. 



1630J FAREWELL TO ENGLAND 59 

Southampton Water, if the wonderful tides served on that 
22d day of March, 1630, there was hardly any more beau- 
tiful sheet of water set in more lovely shores. The fare- 
well view of Old England presented to their lingering gaze 
was in the midst of the most exquisite scenery that land, 
water, hills, dales, and woods ever formed. On either side 
are beautiful villas, the walls of old and ivy-covered towers, 
and the ruins of ancient abbeys. 

It is not possible for us to penetrate the veil which hid 
the deep feelings and well-springs of thought in the minds 
of these people, however active our imagination, however 
much we may seek to do it. It is an unusual experience to 
go forth with no hope of returning ; it is like bidding fare- 
well to mortal affairs. They were assured that this was 
their last view of home, and ruins, and ivy-mantled towers, 
of historic associations connected with their ancestors for 
thousands of years. But deeper, more heart-rending than 
all, was the severing of tender ties of family and friendship. 
There could be no future meetings, and for the multitude 
little or no correspondence. There may, it is true, have 
been many who had been weaned from intense love of 
fatherland by what they had suffered, and who hailed their 
hour of deliverance with joy. There may have been others 
who were so inspired by that vista of religious and political 
freedom beyond the sea, by their visions of a Utopia towards 
which they were now tending, that the mighty past became 
as nothing in comparison with the future which lay before 
them. Nevertheless, to one and all of them there surely 
came moments when the tide of feeling had its way, and 
their hearts were true and tender with thoughts of home 
and early friends. 

The last meeting of the Court of Assistants on English 
soil was at Southampton four days before they sailed. 1 The 
Arbella was on March 23 riding at Cowes. Here on board 
the ship, at a Court of Assistants, Thomas Dudley was 
chosen deputy governor in place of John Humphrey, who 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 69. 



60 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vi 

had decided not to embark then, but who came to America 
later. 

Dudley held this same office by annual elections thirteen 
different years. This was the very last record in England 
of the Massachusetts Company, and its purpose was to con- 
fer honor and responsibility upon Dudley. The four ships 
sailed from Cowes on the 29th of March, and were soon at 
Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. They were delayed there 
more than a week by contrary winds. This gave the emi- 
grants the privilege of a visit, on April 6, from the captain 
of Yarmouth Castle, who took breakfast with them. They 
were also honored with a visit the same day from Matthew 
Cradock, the first governor of the company, who never 
came to America. He had once before at their embarkation 
bidden them farewell, but his interest was so deep in the 
enterprise that he had followed them to their last anchorage 
on the coast of Europe. 

Governor Winthrop informs us that " Lady Arbella and the 
gentlewomen, and Mr. Johnson and some others, went on 
shore to refresh themselves." No doubt it was a great de- 
light to them to be permitted unexpectedly once more, and 
for the very last time, to step upon the soil of Old England, 
and Yarmouth will always have the honor of being the place 
of this farewell. 

But the next day a more- important event in human history 
transpired, when the following letter, signed by the most 
notable men in the cabin of the Arbella, setting forth their 
affection and loyalty toward the Church of England, " their 
dear mother," went forth from this village of Yarmouth, 
giving it a lasting place in the memories of men : — 

"The Humble Request of His Majesty's Loyal Subjects, 
the Governor and the Company late gone for New Eng- 
land ; To the rest of their Brethren in and of the Church 
of England. For the obtaining of their Prayers, and the 
removal of suspicions, and misconstructions of their In- 
tentions : — 



1630] THE HUMBLE REQUEST 61 

" Reverend Fathers and Brethren, —The general rumor of 
this solemn enterprise, wherein ourselves with others, through 
the providence of the Almighty, are engaged, as it may spare 
us the labor of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives 
us the more encouragement to strengthen ourselves by the 
procurement of the prayers and blessings of the Lord's faith- 
ful servants. For which end we are bold to have recourse 
unto you, as those whom God hath placed nearest his throne 
of mercy ; which, as it affords you the more opportunity, so 
it imposeth the greater bond upon you, to intercede for his 
people in all their straits. We beseech you, therefore, by the 
mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your brethren, 
standing in very great need of your help, and earnestly im- 
ploring it. And howsoever your charity may have met with 
some occasion of discouragement through the misreport of 
our intentions, or through the disaffection or indiscretion of 
some of us, or rather amongst us (for we are not of those that 
dream of perfection in this world), yet we desire you would 
be pleased to take notice of the principals and body of our 
Company, as those who esteem it our honor to call the Church 
of England, from whence we rise, our dear mother ; and 
cannot part from our native country, where she specially 
resideth, without much sadness of heart and many tears in 
our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we 
have obtained in the common salvation, we have received in 
her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts. 

" We leave it not therefore as loathing that milk where- 
with we were nourished there ; but, blessing God for the 
parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall 
always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any 
sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while we have breath, 
sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and abun- 
dance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in 
the Kingdom of Christ Jesus. 

" Be pleased, therefore, reverend fathers and brethren, to 
help forward this work now in hand ; which if it prosper, 
you shall be the more glorious, howsoever your j udgment is 



62 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vi 

with the Lord, and your reward with your God. It is a usual 
and laudable exercise of your charity, to commend to the 
prayers of your congregations the necessities and straits of 
your private neighbours : do the like for a Church springing 
out of your own bowels. We conceive much hope that this 
remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent, will be a 
most prosperous gale in our sails, and provide such a passage 
and welcome for us from the God of the whole earth, as 
both we which shall find it, and yourselves, with the rest of 
our friends, who shall hear of it, shall be much enlarged to 
bring in such daily returns of thanksgivings, as the special- 
ties of his providence and goodness may justly challenge 
at all our hands. You are not ignorant that the spirit of 
God stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continual mention 
of the Church of Philippi, which was a colony from Rome ; 
let the same spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are 
the Lord's remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing, 
who are a weak colony from yourselves, making continual 
request for us to God in all your prayers. 

" What we entreat of you that are the ministers of God, 
that we also crave at the hands of all the rest of our brethren, 
that they would at no time forget us in their private solicita- 
tions at the throne of grace. 

" If any there be who, through want of clear intelligence 
of our course, or tenderness of affection towards us, cannot 
conceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would 
entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their 
prayers and affections, but to consider rather that they are 
so much the more bound to express the bowels of their com- 
passion towards us, remembering always that both nature 
and grace doth ever bind us to relieve and rescue, with our 
utmost and speediest power, such as are dear unto us, when 
we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards. 

"What goodness you shall extend to us in this or any 
other Christian kindness, we, your brethren in Christ Jesus, 
shall labor to repay in what duty we are or shall be able to 
perform, promising, so far as God shall enable us, to give 






1630] THE HUMBLE REQUEST 63 

him no rest on your behalfs, wishing our heads and hearts 
may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare 
when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, 
overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the 
manifold necessities and tribulations which may not alto- 
gether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably, befall us. 
And so commending you to the grace of God in Christ, we 
shall ever rest 

Your assured friends and brethren, 
" John Winthrop, Gov., Richard Saltonstall, 
Charles Fines, Isaac Johnson, 

George Phillipps, Thomas Dudley, 

William Coddington, 
&c. &c. 

"From Yarmouth, aboard the Arbella, April 7, 1630." 1 

The fact that Winthrop' s name as governor appears first 
in this letter among the signers of it would not seem to give 
any assurance that he was the author. Mr. Robert C. Win- 
throp dwells with some satisfaction upon his possible author- 
ship of it. The pathetic parts seem more like the work of a 
minister than of Governor Winthrop or of Governor Dudley, 
although neither of them was wanting in emotional power of 
expression when the occasion demanded, as we shall here- 
after discover. It is not probable that any person in the 
colony in the time of Governor Dudley had greater power in 
drawing public letters and documents in apt words and terse 
forms of expression than himself. He had given years to 
this very difficult occupation under the instructions of Judge 
Nicolls, a great master in that art. 

The authorship is unimportant, and it need not be assumed 
for either of them without evidence. They may all have the 
credit of a joint composition, and each may be held responsi- 
ble for all that appears in the letter, and each and all have 
the credit of every worthy and exalted sentiment contained 
in it. 

1 Young's Chron., 295. 



64 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vi 

The particular value of this letter is in their clear and 
unrestricted declaration of perfect loyalty to the Church of 
England and most deep and sincere attachment to it. They 
were not yet Separatists. They were hereafter to be trained 
in a rugged school, until step by step their dear and early 
church affiliations would disappear and leave them only in- 
flexible Independents. When they signed this letter, they 
were Puritans, who were constantly saying to the Established 
Church, " Thou ailest here and here," but their cry was soon 
unavailing, and they went their own way. They had said, 
" We do not go to New England as Separatists from the 
Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the 
corruptions in it ; but we go to practice the positive part of 
Church reformation, and propagate the Gospel in America." 
They set sail in earnest for their long voyage across the 
Atlantic, Thursday, April 8, about six in the morning, and 
before ten they were through the Needles, which will always 
recall, to persons interested in the exiles on those ships, their 
very last adieu but one to their native land. Those pointed 
rocks were then as beautiful as to-day, with the same curious 
" effect produced by the wonderfully colored cliffs, contrasted 
with the glittering masses of the snowy Needles," visible to 
all who pass along this great highway of nations, century 
after century. 

As they were sailing along the coast of England on the 
first day, they were made very anxious because eight sail 
astern of them seemed to be Dunkirkers, hostile to England 
and dangerous to them. They put themselves and their 
ships in fighting trim with great courage and calmness ; " the 
Lady Arbella and the other women and children were re- 
moved into the lower deck, that they might be out of danger. 
All things being thus fitted, we went to prayer upon the 
upper deck. It was much to see how cheerful and comfort- 
able all the company appeared ; not a woman or child that 
showed fear, though all did apprehend the danger to have 
been great, if things had proved as might well be expected, 



1630] SCILLY ISLES 65 

. . . but our trust was in the Lord of Hosts." * The ships 
proved to be friendly and harmless, but it reveals to us what 
manifold perils they were exposed to at all times. 

They were on Sunday, the nth of April, past the Scilly 
Isles, where thirty years after Sir Harry Vane, fourth gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, was a state prisoner. 2 They had a 
small accident, and the minister and the people were sick, 
and they were all out of order that day, and could have no 
sermons. 

The next day, Governor Winthrop says, " our children and 
others, that were sick, and lay groaning in the cabins, we 
fetched out, and having stretched a rope from the steerage 
to the mainmast, we made them stand, some of one side and 
some of the other, and sway it up and down till they were 
warm, and by this means they soon grew well and merry." 3 

1 Winthrop, i. 

2 J. B. Moore's Memoirs of Am. Governors, 332. 

3 Winthrop, i. *Q. 



CHAPTER VII 

We have not mentioned that the first charter of Massa- 
chusetts was on board the Arbella, and being transported to 
America, a fact often unjustly declared to be due to sharp 
practice on the part of the Puritans, the grantees. We most 
heartily join these critics in disapproving of the sentiments 
of the Greek poet, that " unrighteousness might be fittingly 
practiced in order to obtain a crown, but that righteousness 
should be practiced in all other times and places." 1 

This theory of virtual deception on the part of the Puri- 
tans has been assumed and argued long and fervently by 
persons who have been searching for their transgressions, 
and who have not always been embarrassed by worship of 
ancestors, but only afflicted with an ambition to champion 
the thrice-popular cause of liberty, often themselves simply 
indifferent to religion or to limitations which the best stand- 
ards in this generation approve, and which the Puritans 
deemed most sacred and binding upon them. There has 
been a reaction in Puritan Boston, and the pendulum, in 
swinging away from the intolerance of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, has gone to the other extreme, and persons to the 
manor born have prided themselves in casting overboard 
the founders of the old Commonwealth as Jonahs who made 
an unseemly record, and whose memory ought not to be 
much cherished in modern thought. A notable exception is 
made of John Winthrop, who for prudential reasons is usu- 
ally let off mildly, with extenuating particulars, which leave 
little to blame in his truly heroic record. There have been, 
it is true, some noble lawyers who have honestly argued 

1 Eurip. Phcen., 534; Freeman's Hist, of the Norman Conquest, i. 
290. 



1630] FIRST CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS 67 

that the charter ought never to have come to America, and 
that it was not constructed for the use it was put to, and 
it would seem to follow from their position that what was 
done in America under the charter was illegal and unwar- 
ranted. 

Fortunately, we are not driven to these painful conclusions. 
The action of the Puritans in this matter has been fully vin- 
dicated by careful students who have given their lives to the 
investigation of charter rights. 1 Chief Justice Joel Parker, 
Royall Professor of Law in Harvard University, said, Febru- 
ary 9, 1869, "The grantees professed, in all they did, to act 
under the charter, and, as they contended, according to the 
charter. We are to look to the terms of the charter, there- 
fore, and to a sound construction of its provisions, to ascer- 
tain what rights of legislation, religious or otherwise, were 
possessed by the grantees. 

" From a careful examination of it, I have no hesitation in 
maintaining five propositions in relation to it. [We quote 
only three of them.] 

" 1. The charter (bearing date March 4, 1629) is not, and 
was not, intended to be an act for the incorporation of a trad- 
ing or merchants' company merely. But it was a grant 
which contemplated the settlement of a colony, with power 
in the incorporated company to govern that colony. 

" 2. The charter authorized the establishment of the gov- 
ernment of the colony within the limits of the territory to be 
governed, as was done by the vote to transfer the charter and 
government. 

" 3. The charter gave ample powers of legislation and of 
government for the plantation or colony, including power to 
legislate on religious subjects, in the manner in which the 

1 The considerations by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts of 
charter rights have special interest. (Commonwealth v. Roxbury, 9 
Gray, 480, 481.) The notes of Chief Justice Gray, respecting the 
removal of the charter from England, are particularly valuable and 
conclusive in favor of the right of transfer. (lb., 510, 511 ; Quincy's 
Hist, of Boston, 329-339, notes.) 



68 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vii 

grantees and their associates claimed and exercised the legis- 
lative power." 1 

This removal of the charter was sanctioned at the time 
by the best legal advice ; the Privy Council did not question 
the lawfulness of the act of transfer ; it was approved by the 
attorney-general. The chief justices Rainsford and North 
mention the " charter as making the adventurers a corpora- 
tion upon the place." Chief Justice Parker has shown that 
it was a practical impossibility to have carried on the govern- 
ment of the colony with the charter and General Court in 
England ; that the theory that, such was the original inten- 
tion is reduced to an absurdity by a construction of all the 
parts of the charter together. Since no place was mentioned, 
why was not Boston, in English America, more fitting than 
London in England, and why was not the choice left to the 
grantees ? We say it was ! Besides, similar patents were 
granted to colonies later, showing that the government found 
nothing to complain of in this precedent when afterwards it 
granted charters to Rhode Island and Connecticut, with full 
liberty to transport them, and to other colonies as well. No, 
the ruts of condemnation are easy to travel, for those who 
seek them, but they are not profitable unless there is more 
substantial cause. We are fortunately not left to the inter- 
pretations of the charter by lawyers and historians, in the 
decision of this much-controverted matter, because recently 
discovered original documents quite conclusively close the 
argument. Winthrop, in a paper which came to light in 

1 Massachusetts and its Early History, Lowell Institute Lectures, 
1869, 364-384. 

Mr. James Bryce, in speaking of the authority contained in the char- 
ters of Massachusetts, says : " We have therefore ... in the charter 
of 1628-29, as well as in that of 1691, the essential and capital charac- 
teristic of a rigid or supreme constitution, — viz., a frame of government 
established by a superior authority, creating a subordinate law-making 
body, which can do everything except violate the terms and transcend 
the powers of the instrument to which it owes its own existence. . . . 
The trading company grows into a colony, and the colony into a state." 
(The Amer. Commonwealth, i. 413-415.) 



1630] FIRST CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS 69 

i860, and which shows that the removal was expected by the 
British government, says : " The last clause (in the charter) is 
for the governing of inhabitants within the plantation. For 
it being the manner for such as procured patents for Virginia, 
Bermudas, and the West Indies, to keep the chief govern- 
ment in the hands of the company residing in England (and 
so this was intended and with much difficulty we got it ab- 
scinded)." This reveals to us the reason why the place of 
administering the charter is not mentioned in it. It seems 
to settle the controversy. 1 

The removal was unique at the start no doubt, but from it 
follow such important and necessary consequences that it 
now really seems to have been the natural and inevitable 
course that the charter and the governor and company should 
come together, and be inseparable until the foundation of 
this nation was laid upon bed-rock broad enough to support 
the superstructure, still rising under the guidance of succeed- 
ing generations into higher civilization, giving no indication 
that the principles cherished by the Puritans in the beginning 
are not destined to be sufficient. 

The import of the removal of the charter was vastly aug- 
mented by two things which may or may not have been 
foreseen by the Puritans. The first was the distance of 
three thousand miles, with nothing more swift of transit than 
slow sailing-vessels, requiring from six weeks to three months 
for the passage ; the second was the Puritan revolution at 
home, which demanded the attention of the government so 
completely that it had no time to give thought to its inde- 
pendent and unrestrained child in America. 

These two circumstances contributed to make the oth- 
erwise unimportant transit of the charter really the first 
declaration of independence from British supremacy. This 
severance began at the very start, as the Arbella moved 
out of Southampton Water with the charter, and culminated 
on the 4th of July, 1776, in the American Revolution. 

1 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 443 ; George E. Ellis's Puri- 
tan Age, 47. 



7 o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vii 

Perhaps we can never overestimate the great importance, 
in this wonderful emigration, of the quality of the most 
prominent men among the undertakers. They were men of 
mark at home, men successful in life, with ample possessions, 
persons of high social standing, the natural leaders of society, 
possessing strong personal influence. And they not only 
drew a following after themselves ; they also controlled and 
guided it in the right way. They never, in the first genera- 
tion at least, lost their influence until the Puritan common- 
wealth was firmly knit together, and had entered upon its 
never-ending career of usefulness. 

It must be evident to all persons who study the records, 
that such emigrants never would have abandoned home and 
friends and native land and gone into the wilderness, unless 
they had been assured beyond a doubt that the charter and 
the government would go with them, and that it would be 
lawful in all respects. They were not going for trade or for 
travel ; they and their children were seeking a permanent 
home in America: the charter must secure their rights, it 
must be legal, it must have a legal transfer. Without all 
this, there was no safety in the enterprise ; it would be unut- 
terable risk without hope. They watched every point of 
legal technicality, and did not venture until they felt abso- 
lutely secure. Without this assurance the undertaking could 
have no interest for them. 

But their own records are the best evidence of their pro- 
found solicitude. The record of the General Court for the 
28th of July, 1629, is as follows, viz. : — 

" And lastly, Mr. Governor read certain propositions con- 
ceived by himself, viz., that for the advancement of the 
plantation, the inducing and encouraging persons of worth 
and quality to transport themselves and families thither, and 
for other weighty reasons therein contained, to transfer the 
government of the plantation to those that shall inhabit 
there, and not to continue the same in subordination to the 
company here, as now it is. This business occasioned some 
debate ; but by reason of the great many and considerable 



1630] FIRST CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS 71 

consequences thereupon depending, it was not now resolved 
upon ; but those present are desired privately and seriously 
to consider hereof, and to set down their particular reasons 
in writing pro and con, and to produce the same at the next 
General Court ; where they being reduced to heads, and 
maturely considered of, the company may then proceed to 
a final resolution thereon ; and in the mean time they are 
desired to carry this business secretly, that the same be not 
divulged." 1 

It may be that this injunction of secrecy is one of the little 
things that seem to the enemies of the Puritans so Jesuitical, 
and indicate that they meant to avoid and cheat the spotless 
and credulous Charles I. and his unsuspecting ministers. 
But it was really only a matter of business prudence, usual 
in all corporations, not to divulge vital matters until they are 
matured and the parties know their own minds. It is notable 
that the secrecy is only " in the mean time " of one month, 
until they can debate and deliberate among themselves. 

Less than one month after the above meeting, viz., 
August 26, 1629, the following agreement was entered into 
at Cambridge, in England, signed by only one person who 
was present at the General Court when the subject was first 
introduced, viz., Increase Nowell. Another interesting and 
significant fact is that the names of Governor Winthrop and 
Governor Dudley appear here, and not in the General Court 
record until the September and October following. The 
real Moses and Joshua who were to lead the colony joined 
it upon express condition, legal and sure beyond question, 
that the charter, the very palladium of liberty and of safety, 
was to go with them legally. Every precaution was taken to 
be sure that they were right. They could not afford, as we 
have said, to be wrong ; they had too much at stake. Per- 
haps persons who are so sensitive about the honor of the 
Puritans in this matter think that they ought to have been 
frank, and asked Charles I. or his ministers openly if it was 
intended that the General Court and charter were to be taken 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 49. 



72 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vii 

to Massachusetts. Not one of those men, if a charter were 
granted to them to-day, would ask the government what 
they meant when they issued it ; and if they did, the answer 
would have no value. They would seek the best counsel as 
to its meaning and wait the order of the courts, which have 
the final authority to decide these matters. And that was 
exactly what the Puritans did, as appears by the record, only, 
as is now known, they "had abscinded from the charter" 
the usual statement of administration in England, and were 
therefore safe in that respect. 1 

The true copy of the Agreement at Cambridge, August 26, 
1629, is as follows : " Upon due consideration of the state of 
the plantation now in hand for New England, wherein we, 
whose names are hereunto subscribed, have engaged our- 
selves, and having weighed the greatness of the work in re- 
gard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's good ; 
as also in regard of the difficulties and discouragements which 
in all probabilities must be forecast upon the prosecution of 
this business ; considering withal that this whole adventure 
grows upon the joint confidence we have in each other's 
fidelity and resolution herein, so as no man of us would have 
adventured it without assurance of the rest : now, for the 
better encouragement of ourselves and others that shall join 
with us in this action, and to the end that every man may 
without scruple dispose of his estate and affairs as may best 
fit his preparation for this voyage ; it is fully and faithfully 
agreed amongst us, and every one of us doth hereby freely 
and sincerely promise and bind himself, in the word of a 
Christian, and in the presence of God, who is the searcher 
of all hearts, that we will so really endeavor the prosecution 
of this work, as by God's assistance, we will be ready in our 
persons, and with such of our several families as are to go 
with us, and such provision as we are able conveniently to 
furnish ourselves withal, to embark for the said plantation 
by the first of March next, at such port or ports of this land 
as shall be agreed upon by the company, to the end to pass 
1 John Winthrop's Life and Letters, ii. 443. 



1630] FIRST CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS 73 

the seas (under God's protection), to inhabit and continue 
in New England : provided always, that before the last of 
September next, the whole government, together with the 
patent for the said plantation, be first, by an order of Court, 
legally transferred and established to remain with us and 
others which shall inhabit upon the said plantation : and 
provided also, that if any shall be hindered by such just and 
inevitable let or other cause, to be allowed by three parts of 
four of these whose names are hereunto subscribed, then 
such persons, for such times and during such lets, to be 
discharged of this bond. And we do further promise, every 
one for himself, that shall fail to be ready through his own 
default by the day appointed, to pay for every day's default 
the sum of ^3, to the use of the rest of the company who 
shall be ready by the same day and time. This was done 
by order of Court, the 29th of August, 1629. 

Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Sharpe, 
Thomas Dudley, Increase Nowell, 

William Vassali, John Winthrop, 

Nicholas West, William Pinchon, 

Isaac Johnson, Kellam Browne, 

John Humfrey, William Colbron." j 

It will be noticed that they assert that they have " weighed 
the greatness of the work in regard of the consequence, . . . 
as also in regard of the difficulties," and that they make 
this proviso, upon which condition all their future course 
depends : " Provided always that before the last of Septem- 
ber next, the whole government, together with the patent 
for the said plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally 
transferred and established to remain with its and others 
which shall inhabit upon the said plantation." Governor 
Dudley, who may have written this agreement (it is quite 
like his work), speaks kindly and gratefully of the British 

1 Young's Chron., 281, 282. There are no ministers among these 
names nor at the meetings of assistants; they are lawyers, men of 
affairs, statesmen. 



74 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vn 

government in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln : " But 
we do continue to pray daily for our sovereign lord the king, 
the queen, the prince, the royal blood, the council, and whole 
state, as duty binds us to do, and reason persuades others to 
believe. For how ungodly and unthankful should we be, if 
we should not thus do, who came hither by virtue of his 
Majesty's letters patent, and under his gracious protection; 
under which shelter we hope to live safely." 1 

The vote of the General Court upon the question of the 
transfer of the charter is instructive, and was three days 
after the above Agreement, August 29, 1629, as follows : — 

" As many of you as desire to have the patent and the 
government of the plantation to be transferred to New Eng- 
land, so as it may be done legally, hold up your hands : so 
many as will not, hold up your hands. 

" Where by erection of hands, it appeared by the general 
consent of the company, that the government and patent 
should be settled in New England, and accordingly an order 
to be drawn up." 2 

At a General Court, September 29, 1629, "it was pro- 
pounded that a committee should be appointed to prepare 
the business ; to take advice of learned counsel whether the 
same (the transferring of the charter) may be legally done 
or no ; by what way or means the same may be done, to 
correspond with, and not to prejudice the government here 
[in its action, not in the mind of the British government] ; 
to consider of the time when it will be fit to do it." 3 

The well-established characters of John Winthrop, Isaac 
Johnson, Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, and John 
Humphrey are a guaranty of the good faith and integrity of 
their action, and of their conviction at least that they were 
acting wisely and honestly, and with no purpose to take 
advantage of, or deceive, the English government. Dudley 
appears nowhere in the record until October 15, 1629, al- 
most two months after the vote was passed that the patent 
and government should be settled in New England ; but he 

1 Young's Chron., 331. 2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 51. 3 lb., i. 52. 



1630] TRANSFER OF FIRST CHARTER 75 

had signed the Cambridge Agreement August 26, with the 
condition for removal of charter in it. This does not exon- 
erate him if there was a wrong done in that transfer. He 
was a party to it. But there was no wrong in it, the opin- 
ions of great and wise men to the contrary notwithstanding. 

The Arbella, after an unusually rough voyage, arrived 
safely off Salem harbor, Mass., June 22, 1630, with the 
Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay and the first 
charter, about to enter upon a life in the New World, the 
results of which were far to transcend any conception they 
ever entertained of it in their most visionary moments. 

It has not seemed needful at every mention of events to 
call attention to Dudley's part in them, it being always un- 
derstood that he is a central figure in all that is presented 
here, and that in every one of the stirring incidents men- 
tioned he was a principal actor, although not named. A 
man of strong sensibility and quick feeling, no one of that 
throng left Old England with a more reluctant step, or yet 
with a firmer purpose to give up all questions of personal 
comfort and selfish considerations, to make way for the cause 
of truth, for the blessing of liberty to the church, to the 
state, and to posterity. 

If you would learn how devoted he was to this enterprise 
and to the cause which dominated it, follow him through 
the records of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay during the 
twenty-three years of life which was granted to him here, 
and note that he was present at every session but one, when 
his own cause was in hearing, both of the General Court 
and of the Court of Assistants, until his final sickness and 
disability in 1653, and that therefore there is not a recorded 
act, great or small, which does not bear his illustrious im- 
print. If there was any glory or shame, or praise or blame, 
he shared it all, in the beginning of Massachusetts, New 
England, and the United States. 1 

1 Mr. Savage, in his notes to Winthrop, i. *5i, has well said of 
Dudley, that " his history must be embodied in that of his country." 



CHAPTER VIII 

The arrival of those emigrants in June, 1630, was a great 
event in human history. They settled by their numbers and 
quality, as well as by their energy and enterprise, that the 
undertaking was not to be an uncertain experiment of adven- 
turers. A fixed purpose was at the heart of every one of 
them to make their homes in this wilderness, and devote 
their lives to the setting up of Christ's kingdom, and to the 
construction of a pure and noble state. 

It was natural that these heroic men should then recall 
the first establishment of Christianity in Macedonia, on the 
very spot where, a century before it was planted, the fate 
of the world had been decided ; 1 that they should remem- 
ber " a man of Macedonia, who came to plead the spir- 
itual wants of his country," and that they should write on 
the colonial seal, and stamp on every colonial act, that per- 
petual cry of heathendom, "Come over and help us." Did 
they call to mind the mission of Augustine to heathen Eng- 
land in 616, and the words of Gregory to him respecting his 
treatment of pagans, when he said that " for hard and rough 
minds it is impossible to cut away abruptly all their old 
customs, because he who wishes to reach the highest place 
must ascend by steps, and not by jumps." This was a hu- 
mane rule to guide them in their treatment of Indians, which, 
in any event, they followed. As they were far removed from 
their English home in the prosecution of their Christian 
mission, they might have reflected that that very English 
church and state which had driven them forth had arisen 

1 See Company's Humble Request, April 7, 1630, already mentioned. 
Philippi in Macedonia was the scene of the decisive battle in which 
Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Augustus and Antony, b. c. 42. 



1630] SUFFERINGS OF THE PLANTERS 77 

by degrees from the beginnings of Augustine at Canterbury, 
the first English Christian city. It is notable that, in both 
England and America, Christianity had been planted before 
the arrival of the masterful spirits who were destined to 
achieve its first real conquests. Dudley, in his letter to the 
Countess of Lincoln, in 163 1, sends forth the same Macedo- 
nian cry in behalf of the colonists themselves which they 
at first had put into the mouths of the Indians. He says 
that, "if there be any (in England) endued with grace and 
furnished with means to feed themselves and theirs for 
eighteen months, and to build and plant, let them come over 
into our Macedonia and help us, and not spend themselves 
and their estates in a less profitable employment." * 

Dudley informs the Countess of Lincoln that " our four 
ships which set out in April arrived here in June and July, 
where we found the colony in a sad and unexpected condi- 
tion, above eighty of them being dead the winter before, and 
many of those alive weak and sick ; all the corn and bread 
amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, 
insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty ser- 
vants we had the two years before sent over, coming to 
us for victuals to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly 
unable to feed them, by reason that the provisions shipped 
for them were taken out of the ship they were put in, and 
they who were trusted to ship them in another failed us and 
left them behind ; whereupon necessity enforced us, to our 
extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who had cost us about 
jQ\6 or ^20 a person, furnishing and sending over. 

" But bearing these things as we might, we began to con- 
sult of the place of our sitting down ; for Salem, where we 
landed, pleased us not." 2 

It was most natural and reasonable that Salem should not 
please them, for eighty persons out of the little colony had 
died there the previous winter; others were sick ; the terror 
of famine was in their minds, and all were sad and miserable. 

1 Young's Chron, 325 ; see, also, Appendix A, this volume. 

2 lb., 311. 



78 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vm 

Sickness began to spread, and during that autumn Dudley 
informs us that two hundred of the recent emigrants had 
fallen victims to diseases due largely, no doubt, to exposure 
and unaccustomed hardships. 

The governor went, after a few days of rest, with a num- 
ber of persons, in search of a more satisfactory abode and 
suitable place for a capital town. 1 

Our acquaintance with Dudley in England assures us that 
he was active at this important juncture. He was able, 
thoroughly a business man, eminently qualified to be a leader 
in the moments of selection, which were of great importance 
in their consequences. He was not an idle spectator, but 
an efficient actor. He was called, at the close of his career, 
a " pillar " to support state, church, and society. He and 
Governor Winthrop were both men of decided convictions, 
as competent men always are, for the experience of life 
has taught them safely to rely upon their judgments carefully 
made up. 

Dudley proceeds to tell us that, in this very important ex- 
ploration for a place to settle, " some were sent to the Bay," 
that is, Boston harbor, " to search up the rivers for a conven- 
ient place ; who, upon their return, reported to have found 
a good place upon Mistick, but some other of us, seconding 
these ; " that is to say, following or supplementing these, to 
determine whether "to approve or dislike of their judgment, 
we found a place [that] liked us better, three leagues up 
Charles river," probably Cambridge. 3 It appears from- this 
thattwo expeditions went on these journeys of inquiry, and 
that Winthrop led the first and Dudley the second; that 
neither selection was satisfactory to both leaders, and that 
they settled on Charlestown as a compromise. The next 
year the stanch and still unconvinced governors were each 
dwelling in his own house on the very spot of his own first 
choice, — the one at Mistick, the other at Newtown (Cam- 
bridge). The name Mistick was changed in 1649 to Maiden. 

Winthrop and several of the patentees (including Dudley) 
1 Prince, 308. 2 Young's Chron., 312, note. 



1630] REMOVAL TO CHARLESTOWN 79 

"dwelt in the Great House, which was last year built in this 
town [Charlestown] by Mr. Graves [Thomas Graves, engi- 
neer], and the rest of their servants." * This Great House 
became the public meeting-house of Charlestown from 1633 
until 1636, and was afterwards a tavern or ordinary, and 
in 171 1 was called the "Great Tavern." It stood wholly in 
the Square, opposite the lane by the "Mansion House." 
It was probably destroyed when the town was burnt by the 
British, June 17, 1775. 2 

This removal to Charlestown was on July 12, 1630. 3 
Their place of assembling for divine worship was a spreading 
tree, since the " Great House " would not contain all, or 
indeed a small part, of the emigrants. 4 

It must have been a picturesque scene at the hour of wor- 
ship. The learned divines, trained at the great universities 
of England, exiles, proclaiming beneath a canopy of green 
the unsearchable riches of Christ to a most notable company 
of seed sowers. There sat in the foreground, about the min- 
isters, Governor Winthrop, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac 
Johnson, Thomas Dudley, Roger Ludlow, Increase Nowell, 
William Pynchon, Simon Bradstreet, and their families; 
while in groups down the slope of the hill were scattered 
heroic people, whose hearts were full of the missionary spirit, 
and instinct with the purpose of making the pagan wilder- 
ness before them blossom as the rose, under the light and 
power of Christian civilization. There lay spread out before 
them the whole smiling tract of Massachusetts Bay, with its 
lovely islands in the midst, and its shining shores glorious 
with adornment of primeval forest, as yet undisturbed by 
the violence of man. Trimountain, now Boston, towered 
on the right, while behind them rose a gentle stretch of hill, 
where, a little more than a century later, their descendants 
would struggle with England, in one of the most important 
battles in human history, to complete that severance from, 

1 Young's Chron., 378. 2 lb., 375, note. 

8 Drake's Antiq. of Boston, 92. 

4 J. B. Moore's Memoirs of Amer. Governors, 245. 



So THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. viii 

and independence of, their native land, which they had in- 
augurated when they brought away the first charter in the 
Arbella. How much of interest to us and to humanity 
clustered about this little hillock and these devout and ear- 
nest servants of God ! 

The situation of these people was dismal in the extreme. 
Hunger, and not improbable starvation, were impending as 
the result of want of proper precaution in shipping sufficient 
provisions upon their departure from England ; the water of 
Charlestown had proven bad and unhealthy, because they 
would only use running water ; later the water of that place 
was found to be good and wholesome. Fever and various 
maladies were rapidly reducing their numbers. The devout 
leaders, in their deep and exceeding need, doubtless remem- 
bered that " if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, 
that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not ; and it 
shall be given him." And they set apart the 30th of July, 
1630, as a day of fasting and prayer. 

It is uncertain whether they were gathered under the 
same wide-spreading branches of a tree, or were within the 
walls of the " Great House " of the colony, constructed for 
a residence, for defense, storage, and public gatherings not 
over-large. But here and now, at the conclusion of the 
religious exercises, Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor 
Dudley, Isaac Johnson, and John Wilson, with many others, 
both men and women, put their names to the following cove- 
nant : — 

" In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Obedience 
to His holy will and Divine Ordinance, — 

" We whose names are hereunder written, being by His 
most wise and good Providence brought together into this 
part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts, and desirous 
to unite ourselves into one congregation or Church, under 
the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, in such sort as becometh 
all those whom He hath Redeemed and Sanctified to Him- 
self, do hereby solemnly and religiously (as in His most holy 
Presence) Promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways 



1630] INDEPENDENT CHURCH 81 

according to the Rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere Con- 
formity to His holy Ordinances, and in mutual love and 
respect each to other, so near as God shall give us grace." 1 

Winthrop relates that on the 27th of August, 1630, they 
completed their church organization, afterwards the First 
Church of Boston. He says : " We of the congregation 
kept a fast, and chose Mr. Wilson our teacher, and Mr. 
Nowell an elder, and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall, deacons. 
We used imposition of hands, but with this protestation by 
all, that it was only a sign of election and confirmation, not 
of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry 
he received in England." 

This mode of church institution was not in accord with 
the Church of England. It was like the Separatist method 
in the Plymouth Colony. The members pledged Conformity 
to Christ, and not to the Church of England. The earlier 
church at Salem was impressed with the same independency, 
and doubtless suggested a model at this time. 

Already, at Salem, the disuse of the " Common Prayer and 
of other ceremonies " had alienated the excellent brothers 
John and Samuel Browne, who were more deeply attached 
to the Church of England, and Governor Endicott had sent 
them back to England, because they were not in harmony 
and fellowship in New England. 

Doyle says : " If the colony was to become what its pro- 
moters intended, unity, not merely of religious belief, but 
of ritual and of ecclesiastical discipline, was, at least for the 
present, a needful condition of existence. We must not 
condemn the banishment of the Brownes unless we are pre- 
pared to say that it would have been better for the world if 
the Puritan colony of Massachusetts had never existed." 2 

The church now formed set aside the liturgy, prayers 
"read from a book," all church days except the Sabbath, 

1 George E. Ellis's Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 58; Drake's Hist. 
Boston, 93; Mr. Foxcroft's sermon, August 23, 1730; Memorial Hist, 
of Boston, i. 114. 

2 English in America, i. 129. 



82 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. viii 

and responsive services. T.hey went, as they thought, di- 
rectly to the Scriptures, and in the exercise of right reason 
believed themselves led and guided to lay hold upon the 
essential and fundamental truth and practice of the mother 
church, divested of its lifeless and traditional customs and 
teachings. 

" Hail to the spirit which dared 

Trust its own thoughts before yet 
Echoed him back by the crowd ! " J 

They seemed not to have realized how far they had wan- 
dered away from the Church of England until a half century 
later, when certain of her members appeared in the colony 
for recognition and brotherly consideration, and were not wel- 
comed. It is thought that all the Congregational churches 
in America have taken their form of construction from the 
one under consideration. How many great and lasting in- 
stitutions came forth in a few brief years from the heaven- 
appointed hands of this group of men, who were moulding, 
like huge Titans, the destiny of men and states ! 

Many have thought that the Puritans were false in their 
expressions of regard for the Church of England in their 
letter sent from the Arbella to the dear mother church. 
They clung, however, sincerely and earnestly to the " Thirty 
Nine Articles and to the sacred Scriptures." They must 
have been profoundly impressed when they came suddenly 
into the new light and freedom of America, when they lis- 
tened to the experience of their brethren of Salem and 
Plymouth, who had thought out the simple religious require- 
ments in this first planting. It was not yet, and could not 
be for generations, a place for cathedral service, for all the 
pomp and splendor of the State Church of England. The 
times, the place, the irresistible conditions of environment, 
predetermined that the modes of life, manners, customs, and 
worship as well, must be reduced to the simplest form. 
They must march in the lightest armor to fight successfully 
the battles before them. 

1 Matthew Arnold, " Bronte." 



1630] INDEPENDENT CHURCH 83 

We may be certain of one thing : the world has never seen 
a group of men more ingenuous and sincere than these lead- 
ing men. We have known them before, and we shall see 
them in many vicissitudes of life, artless and open-hearted. 
They manifested always a depth of conviction, a profound 
and constant sense of duty and of regard to an all-seeing 
eye which viewed constantly every act of their lives, and 
would literally bring every work and every secret thing into 
judgment, so surely that they became men of deep integrity, 
penetrated with holy purposes, and hypocrites never. 1 They 
did some things which we cannot approve, but they did 
them in obedience to what they found in the very oracles 
of God, read and interpreted from their standpoint ; and how- 
ever much we may doubt the authority for the act which 
they read in or out of the sacred texts, we need not, nor 
cannot, question the sincerity or downright honesty of the 
men. 

The records of Charlestown state "that in the mean 
time they went on with their work for settling. In order 
to which they, with Mr. John Wilson, one of the ministers, 
did gather a church, and chose the said Mr. Wilson pastor, 
the greatest number all this time intending nothing more 
than settling in this town ; for which the governor ordered 
his house to be cut and framed here. But the weather being 
hot, many sick, and others faint after their long voyage, 
people grew discontented for want of water, who generally 
notioned no water good for a town but running springs. . . . 
The death of so many was concluded to be much the more 
occasion by this want of good water." 2 There is a thrilling 
account of the sufferings and sickness of these people by 
Edward Johnson, who was one of them. 3 

It appears that there was a wide distribution of the people 

1 Men have sneered at Puritans, but, Macaulay says, " no man ever 
did it who had occasion to meet them in the halls of debate, or cross 
swords with them on the field of battle." 

2 Young's Chron., 399. 

3 See Mass. Hist. Coll., xii. 37 ; Young's Chron., 380, note. 



84 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. viii 

into the country in different directions in search of good 
water, resulting in many permanent settlements. 

We find in the Charlestown records that "in the mean 
time Blackstone, dwelling on the other side of Charles River 
alone, at a place by the Indians called Shawmutt, where he 
only had a cottage, at or not far off from the place called 
Blackstone's Point, he came and acquainted the governor of 
an excellent spring there ; withal inviting him and soliciting 
him thither ; . . . whither also the frame of the governor's 
house, in preparation at this town [Charlestown], was also 
(to the discontent of some) carried, where people began 
to build their houses against winter ; and this place was 
called Boston. . . . But this [search for water], attended 
with other circumstances, the wisdom of God made use of 
as a means of spreading his Gospel and peopling of this 
great and then terrible wilderness ; and this sudden spread- 
ing into several townships came to be of far better use for 
the entertainment of so many hundreds of people, that came 
for several years [until 1640] following hither in such mul- 
titudes from most parts of Old England than if they had 
now remained all together in this town." x 

It seems reasonable to believe that Dudley and his family 
passed their first winter in Boston. 2 The greatest part of 
the church removed thither 3 with the governor. Dudley 
did not remain in Charlestown, for the list is given of those 
who were not scattered abroad, 4 and his name is not found 
in it, neither is the name of his son-in-law, Mr. Bradstreet, 
there. And we know that he did not build his house in 
Cambridge until the next year, and that many of the more 
distinguished assistants accompanied the governor to Bos- 
ton and remained until spring. Mr. Dudley has himself 

1 Young's Chron., 380-382. 

2 His letter to the Countess of Lincoln, dated March 12, 1630, which 
was 163 1 N. S., was written from Boston, and, as it would seem, in the 
only room occupied by himself and family in his own house there. 
(Drake's Hist, and Antiq. of Boston, 91, note.) 

8 Young's Chron., 381. 4 lb., 382, 383. 



1630] DISTRIBUTION OF EMIGRANTS 85 

given a very graphic account of the dispersion, but he does 
not state the object of it to have been a search for pure 
water ; quite likely what the above record calls a " circum- 
stance," he considered the chief and perhaps only cause. 

He says in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln : " But 
there [at Charlestown] receiving advertisements by some of 
the late-arrived ships, from Lincoln and Amsterdam, of some 
French preparations against us (many of our people brought 
with us being sick of fevers and the scurvy, and we thereby 
unable to carry up our ordnance and baggage so far), we 
were forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter 
to plant dispersedly, some at Charlestown, which standeth 
on the north side of the mouth of Charles River ; some on 
the south side thereof, which place we named Boston (as 
we intended to have done the place we first resolved on) 
[for a capital] ; some of us upon Mystick, which we named 
Medford ; some of us westwards on Charles River, four 
miles from Charlestown, which place we named Watertown ; 
others of us two miles from Boston, in a place we named 
Roxbury ; others upon the river of Saugus, between Salem 
and Charlestown ; and the western men four miles south 
from Boston, at a place we named Dorchester. 

" This dispersion troubled some of us ; but help it we 
could not, wanting ability to remove to any place fit to build 
a town upon, and the time too short to deliberate any longer, 
lest the winter should surprise us before we had builded our 
houses. 

" The best counsel we could find out was to build a fort 
to retire to, in some convenient place [which Dudley did at 
Cambridge], if any enemy pressed us thereunto, after we 
should have fortified ourselves against the injuries of wet 
and cold. So ceasing to consult further for that time, they 
who had health to labor fell to building, wherein many were 
interrupted with sickness, and many died weekly, yea, almost 
daily. Amongst whom were Mrs. Pynchon, Mrs. Codding- 
ton, Mrs. Phillips, and Mrs. Alcock, a sister of Mr. Hooker's. 
Insomuch that the ships being now upon their return, some 



86 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. viii 

for England, some for Ireland, there was, as I take it, not 
much less than a hundred (some think many more), partly 
out of dislike of our government, which restrained and pun- 
ished their excesses, and partly through fear of famine, not 
seeing other means than by their labor to feed themselves, 
which returned back again ; and glad were we so to be rid 
of them." 1 

Dudley's account of the distribution of inhabitants in all 
directions seems to suggest that, since they could not build 
and fortify a town and place their ordnance in such a posi- 
tion as to be effective, it was better to make no exhibition 
of numbers and strength to tempt the enemy, but to fold 
their tents and silently steal away, and wait for spring and 
health and prosperity. The fortitude of these men was stu- 
pendous in the face of starvation and death, without houses 
or homes, and winter rapidly approaching, the merciless 
ocean in front of them and the unknown and mysterious 
forest behind them, their ranks daily decimated by disease, 
and, last of all, seeing the departure and desertion of a hun- 
dred at a time, in total discouragement and disgust, of per- 
sons who had consecrated their lives to this enterprise, and 
who now like cowards were madly seeking a place of retreat 
and safety. This is an exhibition of heroism which matches 
anything the history of the world can show even in " facing 
fearful odds " on the fields of martial glory ; for there the 
conflict is brief, here it was long and arduous and unremit- 
ting, endured mostly for mankind, for posterity. Certainly 
it was so with Dudley. He left a prosperous, happy home 
in England. His life was approaching its decline. He was 
not a persecuted clergyman, without visible support, fleeing 
from the fury of the bishops. 

Isaac Johnson fell a victim to disease and privation on the 
30th day of September, 1630. His lovely wife, Arbella, for 

1 Young's Chron., 321-324, App. " Dudley and Winthrop seem to 
have been less impressed with the heroism of those who stayed than 
with the faint-heartedness of those who fled." (J. A. Doyle's English 
in America, i. 136.) 



1630] ISAAC AND LADY ARBELLA JOHNSON 87 

whom their ship was named, the heroine of the emigration, 
had left them a month before for the life beyond. Johnson 
was the largest shareholder, the most wealthy man, in the 
company. But his loss to the colony was not in money ; in 
sterling character he left a void that never could be filled. 
We can well understand something of the bereavement sus- 
tained by Dudley in the demise of Isaac and Lady Arbella 
Johnson. He could say with sincerity that the return of 
indolent adventurers to England was a blessing to the col- 
ony. But the departure of these persons was another thing. 
They were members of the noble house of Lincoln ; they 
were family friends. The loss of such wealth of character 
in any community, no matter how rich it might be in dis- 
tinguished people, would be irreparable ; but in this forlorn 
situation, wherein character and leadership were of con- 
summate importance, the bereavement was overwhelming. 
Dudley had been a member of the household for many 
years, and had been a stay, counselor, and business director 
in the family ; he may have influenced these persons, by 
his words or his example, to risk every earthly hope in this 
emigration ; they were nearer to him, and he to them, than 
any other persons in the colony, — we need not except his 
son-in-law, Bradstreet, who was younger. He must have 
felt keenly the demise of Lady Arbella, the cherished sister 
of his patron and dear friend, the Earl of Lincoln. He had 
a sympathetic, compassionate heart beneath his dignified, 
judicial, and martial bearing. This appears in his affection- 
ate letters, in his ardent response to kindness shown to him 
by Governor Winthrop at unexpected moments, when his 
intrinsic nature was shown in all its strength. Dudley, we 
cannot doubt, did all that human aid could accomplish to 
console and comfort the heart of Mr. Johnson during that 

brief thirty days in which 

" he try'd 
To live without her, lik'd it not and dy'd." 

Dudley has given to us his own beautiful description of the 
situation, full of pathos and personal emotion. He says : 



88 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. vm 

" This gentleman was a prime man amongst us, having the 
best estate of any, zealous for religion, and the greatest 
furtherer of this plantation. He made a most godly end, 
dying willingly, professing his life better spent in promoting 
this plantation than it could have been any other way." He 
then writes one of his comprehensive, terse sentences, full 
of discernment of the worth they had lost. " He left to us 
a loss greater than the most conceived." He then describes 
their stripped and desolate condition. " There were left 
[by the end of October, 1630] of the five undertakers but 
the governor, Sir Richard Saltonstall and myself, and seven 
other of the assistants. And of the people who came over 
with us, from the time of their setting sail from England, 
in April, 1630, until December following, there died by 
estimation about two hundred at the least : so low hath the 
Lord brought us ! 

" Well, yet they who survived were not discouraged, but 
bearing God's corrections with humility, and trusting in his 
mercies, and considering how, after a lower ebb, he had 
raised up our neighbors at Plymouth." * 

Edward Everett has so touchingly described the events in 
this chapter that we quote his words : — 

" The Massachusetts Company arrived at the close of 
June. No vineyards, as now, clothed our inhospitable hill- 
sides ; no blooming orchards, as at the present day, wore the 
livery of Eden, and loaded the breeze with sweet odors ; no 
rich pastures, nor waving crops, stretched beneath the eye 
along the wayside, from village to village, as if Nature had 
been spreading her flowers with a carpet, fit to be pressed 
by the footsteps of her descending God ! The beauty and 
the bloom of the year had passed. The earth, not yet sub- 
dued by culture, bore upon its untilled bosom nothing but 
a dismal forest, that mocked their hunger with rank and 
unprofitable vegetation. The sun was hot in the heavens. 
The soil was parched, and the hand of man had not yet 
taught its secret springs to flow from their fountains. The 
1 Appendix A. 



1630] EVERETT'S DESCRIPTION 89 

wasting disease of the heartsick mariner was upon the men ; 
and the women and children thought of the pleasant homes 
of England as they sank down from day to day, and died at 
last, for want of a cup of cold water in this melancholy land 
of promise." 



CHAPTER IX 

We have attempted to present these emigrants as they 
were in the autumn of 1630, with their trials, and wild, 
strange environment. 

It is of the greatest importance, when we have discovered 
their real status and associations, to ascertain what they did, 
particularly what they produced which has come to us and 
entered into our social fabric. This leads us at once to the 
study of their legislation. For, view it as we will, in their 
laws we find the life and inwardness of a people, the high- 
water mark of their progress, fixed and unalterable. It is 
true laws are sometimes in advance of public sentiment, but 
in general they are the product of the intelligence of the 
majority. " History is past politics and politics is present 
history," says Freeman. Politics is the theory and practice 
of obtaining the ends of civil society as perfectly as possible. 

It is certain that these people properly regarded their 
charter as the foundation and constitution of a government. 
It has been said, without sufficient authority, that they had 
no right to assume it to be such. Certainly the fathers did 
not intend to be deceived, and took every precaution to be 
certain, as we have seen. Even if they were mistaken, time 
has healed the injury. We think that their interpretation of 
the charter was reasonable and correct, one which protected 
them, and secured the blessings of liberty to themselves and 
their posterity. It ill becomes us to waste sympathy on the 
tyrannical government which issued the charter, and to 
charge double-dealings upon our heroic fathers, — godly men, 
intrusted in the providence of God with greater human inter- 
ests, more important to their race, than were ever given to 
the keeping of any other body of people in history, — a trust 
performed with the utmost fidelity. 



1630] EARLY LAWS OF THE COLONY 91 

The first Court of Assistants was held at Charlestown, 
August 23, 1630, probably in the "Great House," at which 
Dudley was present. The first business considered was the 
maintenance of the ministers in the most comfortable man- 
ner their circumstances allowed. This seems to manifest at 
the very beginning an appreciation of their importance, and 
how much depended upon their faithful services in this 
undertaking. The rate of wages to be paid to various 
mechanics and laborers employed in building was also deter- 
mined ; it is quite evident that carpenters and masons were 
taking advantage of the immediate necessity for houses, all 
persons impatiently desiring them at once. The next Court 
of Assistants was held at the "Great House" at Charles- 
town, September 7, 1630. Ludlow, Rossiter, and Pynchon 
are fined a noble (6s. 6d.) apiece for their absence from the 
Court after the appointed time. Herein Dudley furnished to 
his associates for years a creditable example ; he was almost 
never absent or tardy at Court. This is a trifle, but it indi- 
cates his business habits of attention and punctuality. What- 
ever was done by the Court in his lifetime, whether it was 
action that was wise and reasonable or otherwise, it was his, 
he was a part of it, for his thought was in it, either to create, 
direct, and guide or to modify it. The doings of the Courts, 
therefore, since he left no biography or diary, are the most 
permanent memorials of his life work from 1630 to 1653. 
Whoever seeks his monument must search the records of 
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England. 1 He 
was too intent upon the momentous duty of the hour to 
study the far-off effects and perspective views of posterity 
upon his work. He came to America and cut all the 
bridges behind him ; had severed himself from his family, 
excepting his wife and children, as completely as if a deluge 
had separated them ; and he would naturally give little heed 
to the presentation of his doings and himself to the judg- 
ment of later generations. It was not that he was thought- 
less of those who were to follow him. These twenty-three 
1 See Savage's note to Winthrop, i. *5i. 



92 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

years, the crowning days of his life, were devoted freely and 
unselfishly to the establishment of an asylum and refuge for 
the oppressed of future times. It has often happened that 
men of action have had little regard for their fame, or the 
interest of posterity in them. 

Thomas Morton, of Wollaston, received at this Court well- 
deserved punishment, 1 resulting in his being sent to England, 
then the Botany Bay of the colony, which transportation, if 
the colony had used more, and some other punishments less, 
it would have, in the opinion of more humane ages, added to 
its lasting merits. It was ordered that " Trimountain shall 
be called Boston," a change in name not due to the Rev. 
John Cotton, as it has been said, for he was not yet in the 
country. Dudley says that they had intended in advance to 
name the "place Boston that they first resolved on," — we 
suppose he means for a capital. If that view is correct, they 
decided on the name of Boston, and the place for a capital, 
September 7, 1630, then in the following December changed 
their minds, and resolved that Newtowne (Cambridge) should 
be the capital, then subsequently changed back to Boston 
permanently, with a brief exception, in 1634-35. 

The Court refused to permit any Indians to use any 
" Peece " (musket) upon any occasion or pretense whatso- 
ever. It also began on the same 28th day of September 
its temperance crusade, for it ordered " that all the strong 
water of Richard Clough shall presently be seized, for his 
selling a great quantity was the occasion of much disorder." 
This Court was active also in the determination, as a matter 
of law, of the amount each mechanic should receive as daily 
wages, which still seems to indicate a purpose among these 
house-builders to take advantage of the needs of the people. 
But if that were so, it was not confined to them, for it was 
ordered at the same time " that laborers in general shall not 
take above i6d. or I2d. a day for their work." Sir Richard 
Saltonstall was fined four bushels of malt for his absence 
from the Court. He soon grew weary of the exacting life in 
1 See Young, 321, and note. 



1630] COURT OF ASSISTANTS 93 

America, and returned to England in less than a year after 
he left it. 

A meeting of the General Court under the provisions of 
the charter was held in Boston on the 19th day of October, 
1630. This General Court was made up out of three ele- 
ments. First, the governor and the deputy governor were 
the executive, although the second body, known as assist- 
ants, acted with the executive as a council, as the governor 
to this day has a council. This body of assistants was in 
the course of years developed into an upper house, called at 
present the Senate. It was also from the first a court of 
judicature, like the House of Lords in Parliament. Then 
there remained another element called the freemen, which 
included all male persons of age who had taken the oath of 
allegiance to the colony and the laws, and had been admitted 
into membership in the company by a direct personal cove- 
nant and agreement, — in other words, had been accepted 
by the company, and naturalized into it. The lower house, 
known at present as the House of Representatives, must 
include all of these freemen, or else a small body of repre- 
sentatives chosen from them, and given all the powers of 
legislation which the whole body of freemen possessed. 
Thus we have, first, governor or deputy governor ; second, 
assistants ; third, freemen or their representatives. 

The first business that came before the General Court, 
held as above, was the establishment of the government. A 
hundred and eighteen persons had asked to be made free- 
men ; a number of the assistants had died, and others had 
gone home to England, as we have already noticed. This 
left the governor, deputy governor, and assistants in great 
anxiety, lest their government should be overthrown or domi- 
nated by the more numerous freemen, who had not, as they 
thought, the knowledge or wisdom to manage this sacred 
enterprise, the hope of religion and the world. It was a 
crisis sharp and dangerous. They might be engulfed at 
once by an unreasonable democracy, and their holy experi- 
ment totally wrecked, to the great and everlasting joy of the 



-94 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

Philistines, without an opportunity to teach its impressive 
lesson to mankind. They had lived under a very autocratic 
government in England ; they had a conservative and nat- 
ural dread of democracy pure and simple. Even now the 
corruption and fickleness of political parties may raise a rea- 
sonable doubt in thoughtful minds how far the masses, with 
indifferent education and morals, may be trusted, and where 
a free government is to land our succeeding generations. 
They had not then two and a half centuries of democracy in 
America, to inspire confidence in a government of the peo- 
ple, which Abraham Lincoln had when he said in his first 
Inaugural Address, "Why should there not be a patient con- 
fidence in the justice of the people ? Is there any better or 
equal hope in the world ? " No, if the people are wise and 
virtuous ! But if they are ignorant and immoral, it admits 
of doubt. 

The Puritan Fathers, with commendable prudence, dis- 
pensed power and responsibility to these newly enfranchised 
citizens as they proved their fitness for self-government, by 
their knowledge and virtue, and not by their hungry clamor 
for it. This they did, not in an arbitrary manner, but by 
convincing the majority of the justice and wisdom of their 
action. 

It was therefore arranged at this first General Court in 
Boston, by the free suffrages of assistants and freemen to- 
gether, that for one year the sole and only power left with 
the freemen should be to choose the assistants to serve one 
year. During the year the whole legislature and officer- 
appointing powers were vested in the governor, deputy gov- 
ernor, and assistants. 1 

The charter contemplated that a share in legislation should 
be taken by the freemen, and this power, belonging to them 
under the charter, they requested the governor and assistants 
to exercise as their representatives, for a year at a time ; 
and after four years they resumed it to themselves, May 
14, 1634. 2 This double representative service, rendered for 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 79. a lb., i. 118. 



1630] NOT OLIGARCHS 95 

and on behalf of the freemen, has given without reason an 
unwarranted excuse to call the government an oligarchy, and 
the governor, deputy governor, and assistants, oligarchs, — 
a name which, viewed from the standpoint of their repre- 
sentative character, is radically and intrinsically false. 1 

It is unjust to the government, and discreditable to the 
country of which their action and record is a distinguished 
part, to associate them by name and inference with the petty 
tyrants of antiquity. This is especially evil because they 
acted in a most patriotic and unselfish manner. The power 
and trusts they held they never perverted to private uses, 
nor did they employ them to secure their own reelection, 
but served their country ; and the ends of justice which they 
sought would have excused a departure from the letter of 
the law, even if they had exceeded the authority of the 
charter. It is not what is done so much as the spirit in 
which it is done. In this instance the law was not violated. 

Thomas Dudley was the principal founder of Newtowne ; 
the name was changed to Cambridge in 1636. There arose 
a great disagreement between Winthrop and Dudley out of 
the settlement of this town. Governor Hutchinson says that 
"on the sixth of December, Governor Winthrop and the 
assistants met, and agreed to fortify the neck between Boston 
and Roxbury, and orders were given for preparing the ma- 
terials ; but at another meeting, on the twenty-first [day of 
December, 1630] they laid that design aside, and agreed on 
a place [Newtowne] about three miles above Charlestowne, 

1 The governor and assistants were not absolute rulers; they had by 
their office powers under the charter. They were also made represent- 
atives of the freemen, the source of power coming through them to 
the assistants. Oligarchy is an evil misnomer which reminds us of no 
other thing so much as the note of Mr. James Savage upon the word 
" Antinomian," which name always inflicted a qualm upon him. He 
says that " Welde and other inquisitors have trusted much to the 
influence of an odious name. It is the most common artifice of the 
'exquisite rancor of theological hatred.'" (Winthrop, i. 215, note I.) 
It went out of existence with the political uprising which made Dudley 
governor the first time. 



96 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

and most of them engaged to build houses there the next 
year." 1 He says further that "in the spring of 1631, they 
pursued their design of a fortified town at Newtowne. The 
governor set up the frame of a house ; the deputy gov- 
ernor finished his house and removed his family." 2 He 
further informs us that an Indian chief visited Governor 
Winthrop about this time and assured him that there was 
no need of fortifications, which seems to have influenced 
him to make his home in Boston instead of Cambridge, for 
Hutchinson says that "the apprehensions of danger lessened 
by degrees, the design of a fortified town went off in the 
same proportion, until it was wholly laid aside. The gov- 
ernor [Winthrop] took down his frame and carried it to 
Boston. Mr. Dudley, the deputy, was offended, and per- 
sisted for some time in his first determination of residing at 
Newtowne." 3 " It was ordered 4 there should be three- 
score pounds levied out of the several plantations within 
the limits of this patent towards the making of a palisade 
about Newtowne, and viz. : Watertowne £8, Newtowne £4, 
Charlestowne £7, Medford £4, Saugus and Marble Harbor 
£6, Salem £4 10s., Boston £S, Roxbury £y f Dorchester 
jQj, Wessaguscus [Weymouth] £5, Winettsem 30s." 

This record assists us to understand how complete the 
distribution of inhabitants had been in such a short time, 
and the relative importance of these places early in 1631. 
Dudley's military knowledge and foresight has been ques- 
tioned, in his selection of Cambridge, instead of Boston, for 
the purpose of fortification and protection. Some, at least, 
of his reasons were that in case of attack from the sea it 
was far safer to be in the interior, out of range of guns on 
shipboard. They were not in a condition yet to fortify the 
harbor of Boston, and could only throw up an embankment 
and erect simple palings into a palisade in a central place, 
which would not be a defense against the artillery of Europe, 

1 Hutchinson, i. 22. 2 lb., 23. s lb., 23. 

4 At a meeting of assistants in Boston, February 3, 1631. (Mass. 
Col. Rec, i. 93.) 



1631-32] BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE 97 

but only a protection against wild beasts and the darts of 
savages. This did not require hills and elevations. Besides, 
Cambridge was on the west side of most of the plantations, 
and thus would be an outlying fortification in the direction 
of the enemy, and a defense to all the towns except Water- 
town, which is near to it. It had an advantage, also, of not 
being so near to the sea as to enable the enemy to hem them 
in and thus destroy them. However persons may differ 
about the wisdom of the selection of Cambridge, it certainly 
was not an unreasonable policy to fortify it, as Dudley did. 
One thing which seemed to have taken from the importance 
of a fort was the fact that if they retired into it, they must 
abandon their houses and homes to destruction by the sav- 
ages. The remains, it is said, of Dudley's fortification might 
recently have been seen at Cambridge. 1 

It is quite certain, from Winthrop's diary, that he and 
Dudley did not live in the most harmonious relations with 
each other between the spring of 163 1 and the spring of 
1632. And however officially they may have tried to respect 
the position and importance of each other, there existed a 
hardness, which grew until it culminated at last in an open 
rupture in Court between them. The character of Dudley, 
as it is made to appear in the record of his opponent and 
rival, has suffered in the good opinion of all the genera- 
tions since. And if we had not a knowledge of him pre- 
viously as well as subsequently to guide us, the seeming 
judicial fairness of Winthrop's delineations in these disputes, 
as we have already noticed, would create in us, as it has in 
others, a prejudice against Dudley. It is not intended to 
raise a question as to the purpose of Winthrop to be fair, 
but it is not in human nature, even when seasoned with 
grace, to be absolutely just to an opponent in a contest, par- 
ticularly where there is constitutional vigor on both sides, 
and blows to take and blows to give. There is no doubt 
that these two men were at the head of this colony during 

1 T. W. Higginson's Oration, 250th Anniversary, December, 1880; 
Holmes's Hist, of Cambridge. 



98 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

the first twenty years. They had very few estrangements, 
but the major part of their official lives was passed in a 
friendship as beautiful as that of Saul and Jonathan, without, 
as it would seem, a flaw to disturb their perfect harmony 
and unity of spirit. 

Nevertheless, until they learned to esteem and appreciate 
each other they had troubles which we cannot pass over in 
silence, however willingly we would do so. 

The first matter which disturbed them was the refusal of 
the governor and assistants to dwell at Cambridge, establish- 
ing the capital there. 

Winthrop had withdrawn unfairly, as it appeared to the 
elders, upon an examination, and Dudley, who regarded the 
obligations of a contract as extremely sacred, was deeply hurt 
at the manner in which Winthrop had removed his house 
from Cambridge, without giving him notice. 

Winthrop says that " At a Court at Boston, the deputy, 
Mr. Dudley, went away before the Court was ended, and 
then the secretary delivered the governor a letter from him, 
directed to the governor and assistants, wherein he declared 
a resignation of his deputyship and place of assistant ; but it 
was not allowed." Mr. Savage well says, " It is remarkable 
that the colony records give no account whatever of this 
resignation, or of another event, which seems to have been 
a limitation of the power of the governor or the consid- 
eration thereof." This is said to have been done April 3, 
1632. 1 

Dudley was made to appear rash, angry, and unreasonable, 
not by anything said against him, but by being left without 
any explanation or setting forth of his side of the case from 
his own standpoint. It is true we have more details later, 
but they take their color from the same source. 

We do not know from Dudley himself what he suffered 
from 

" The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes ; " 

1 Winthrop, i. *72. 



1631-32] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY DISAGREE 99 

but so far as the record indicates, by its omissions at least, 
he was not rash. The most important trouble of the removal 
of the house had made him unhappy for a year, and, as it 
proved, Winthrop had done him a wrong and yet he had 
borne it a year with a constant accumulation of distress, no 
doubt, because when alienation begins in friendship, it must 
be healed, or the divergence constantly increases. 

Finally it had become so intolerable that he was willing 
for the sake of peace, and for the harmony of the Court, to 
relinquish his share in an enterprise which had drawn into it 
himself and his estate, his hopes for his children, and what 
was more, the paramount cause to him of righteousness in 
the earth, and the holiest experiment of government in the 
world. He had taken a year to think it all over, and in his 
struggle, alternating between hope and fear, at last calmly, 
and to avoid an exhibition of passion, he placed his resigna- 
tion in writing in the hands of the secretary. It is a notable 
fact, which ought not to be overlooked, that from these pages 
of Winthrop, which seem so candidly to state the truth, a 
new character undeserved has been given to Dudley, un- 
known to his contemporaries, which has led recent writers to 
apply to him adjectives not suited to his record established 
in England, and not borne out in Winthrop's Journal, after 
the first years in Massachusetts. It is true that Roger 
Williams, and a few others who tested his methods of jus- 
tice, did not approve of him, and these men have contributed 
to the ill opinion that has been promulgated sometimes by 
men who are quite willing to see the ancient theology ground 
to powder, upon which the fathers built so nobly. 

" The Puritans were narrow ; in other words they had an 
edge to them, as men that serve in great emergencies must, 
for a Gordian knot is settled sooner with a sword than 
beetle." * But in another view they were very liberal ; they 
laid broad foundations of education and of politics, consider- 
ing their historic period, upon which one of the most perfect 
superstructures in human history has arisen. " The bigoted 
1 Lowell's Among My Books, i. 243. 



ioo THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

Mr. Dudley " 1 is a character which is not on the whole just 
to him. 

It is instructive to examine the terms applied to him by 
his contemporaries and personal acquaintances. He was 
declared by them to be a "Trusty Pillar," "Worthy," "Much 
honored," of "Sound judgment," "Like honored," "An 
erect, honored, and long-continued champion for the truth, 
as it is in Jesus," "The honored, aged, stable, and sincere 
servant of Christ, zealous for his truth." Winthrop said of 
Dudley, long years subsequent to their troubles, and after he 
had much opportunity to learn his worth, although he was 
his political rival : " Besides, this gentleman was a man of 
approved wisdom and godliness, and of much good service 
to the country, and therefore it was due to share in such 
honor and benefit as the country had to bestow." 2 These 
are weighty words from a political rival, bursting forth at 
the moment of triumph over himself. We shall quote later 

1 Mr. James Savage, who can neither endure the word Antinomian nor 
the name Dudley, in his note to Winthrop's Journal i. *2i5, has clearly 
shown great solicitude when reproachful epithets are affixed to the names 
of characters admired or cherished by him, while he seems far less con- 
cerned about the fortunes of other worthy names. 

He says, for example, that " similar and often much heavier artillery 
of reproach is too often employed in that fortress within which the brave 
defenders fear no answer of an adversary's fire." This has been strik- 
ingly true of Dudley for many years ; he has had no one to defend him or 
call a halt to his detractors. Mr. Savage says further, and very perti- 
nently, particularly when the treatment Dudley has received is kept in 
mind, " An odious name is the most common artifice of the exquisite 
rancor of theological hatred." We will test the odious names and sen- 
tences which have appeared often where the name of Dudley is written : 
"With a hardness in public, and rigidity in private life," Savage; 
" Testy ; " " Bigoted ; " " Narrow ; " " Austerest of Puritans ; " " Iras- 
cible Dudley ; " " Bigoted Dudley ; " " Man of blood," —this is a suffi- 
cient assortment with which to exhibit the "exquisite rancor of theolo- 
gical hatred." Savage says, " Welde and other inquisitors have trusted 
much to an odious name." Does he mean to style all men inquisitors 
who ruthlessly detract from the memory of the just by the use of evil 
epithets ? We think he is correct. 

2 Winthrop, ii. 3. 



1631-32] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY DISPUTE ioi 

many other persons whose testimony supports the same ex- 
cellent character. We do not overlook the fact that certain 
persons resist the testimony of these associates, the only 
persons who knew the character of Dudley, because they 
regard the Massachusetts Puritans to have been all of the 
same sort, merely members of a mutual admiration society. 
But they were all honest men, and were the heroes who 
founded Massachusetts, forever worthy of veneration and 
immortal honor. 

But returning to the antagonism between Winthrop and 
Dudley, we find in Winthrop's Journal, under date of May 1, 
1632, page *73, the following : " Governor and assistants met 
at Boston to consider of the deputy his deserting his place." 
" Deserting" is a strong word to express a retirement with a 
request for permission to depart in peace. A deserter is one 
who quits duty without right or permit. We must go behind 
the words of Dudley's rival. "The points discussed were 
two: the 1st, upon what grounds he did it; 2d, whether it 
were good or void. For the 1st, his main reason was for 
public peace ; because he must needs discharge his con- 
science in speaking freely ; and he saw that bred disturb- 
ance," etc. How admirable ! It has often been accounted 
creditable in a minister of state to resign his office to produce 
harmony in a cabinet and unity in its action. " For the 2d, 
it was maintained by all that he could not leave his place, 
except by the same power which put him in ; yet he would 
not be put from his contrary opinion, nor would be persuaded 
to continue till the General Court, which was to be the 9th 
of this month." 

He was doubtless most heartily sick of his disagreeable 
situation, and having made up his mind to be free, and hav- 
ing counted the cost and taken his stand, he was not an un- 
stable politician, to be coaxed and placated. Patience had 
ceased to be a virtue, and he had highly resolved to be out 
of his unendurable sufferings. We can find only commenda- 
tion for both his spirit and manner. This was not petty 
conduct in him. His life before and after assures us of the 



102 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

judicial judgment upon which in general he rested his actions. 
He had been all his life a man of moral and religious calibre, 
fearing God and attentive to duty. This established record 
assists us to estimate how he would act under given condi- 
tions of trial and misfortune. True character is the one 
thing in this world that outrides at last all storms and mis- 
representations. Truth is in the keeping of the Almighty 
Father himself. Men may gloss and obscure, but the light 
finds a rift in the clouds at last, and comes streaming 
through. 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, — 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes with pain, 

And dies among his worshipers." 1 

We must, however, follow Winthrop's arraignment of Dud- 
ley, not because the charges amount to anything in them- 
selves, for they do not, but because they are the nebulous 
stuff out of which persons who do not approve of the vigor- 
ous methods of the Puritans have chosen to give a character 
to Dudley which does not accord with what is known of 
him. 

" Another question fell out with him [Dudley] about some 
bargains he had made with some poor men, members of the 
same congregation, to whom he had sold seven bushels and 
an half of corn to receive ten for it after harvest, which the 
Governor [Winthrop] and some others held to be oppressing 
usury, and within the compass of the statute ; but he [Dud- 
ley] persisted to maintain it to be lawful [as he was bound to 
do if he thought so, and he was not the man to do it unless 
he did so think], and there arose hot words about it." We are 
not told which was most effective with hot' shot, but inas- 
much as Dudley was the one charged with grinding the face 
of the poor of his own family in the church, the presumption 
intended to be raised in the mind of the reader is that he 
was most in wrath and most in fault. If Winthrop has 
quoted fairly the words of Dudley on that occasion, we are 

1 Bryant. 



1631-32] DUDLEY AND WINTHROP AROUSED 103 

inclined to regard them as very moderate and calm, and, so 
far as they reflect upon Winthrop's charges, very true and 
just. For, as Savage shows in his note to this passage, 
Dudley was only doing, if we admit the trade to have been 
made, what was and is usual among farmers, " he telling the 
governor that, if he had thought he had sent for him to his 
house to give him such usage, he would not have come there ; 
and that he never knew any man of understanding of other 
opinion ; and that if the governor thought otherwise of it, 
it was his weakness." 1 

" The governor took notice of these speeches, and bear 
them with more patience than he had done, upon a like occa- 
sion, at another time." It was evidently assumed by the 
governor that he was the injured man, for the reasonable 
and truthful remarks of Dudley, given it may be with a little 
natural earnestness, because he considered the charges of 
the governor to be trivial nonsense, as they were, gave the 
governor an opportunity to exhibit the distinguishing grace 
of ancient Job, in a degree somewhat in excess of his previ- 
ous record, and, what is more, to write it down in such a 
good-natured and genial form, that his own excellent quali- 
ties are not neglected. 

But divested of all drapery, it is an attempt to magnify 
nothing into something, a molehill into a mountain, and like 
the charge following it, it takes from the august majesty 
of Winthrop. Idealization of the qualities of great men is 
one of the noblest powers we have. Our heroes, thus invested 
with ideal perfections, stimulate us always to advance to 
greater attainment. But it is healthful to turn the search- 
light upon them, and view them in the real conflicts of life, 
divested of the supernatural qualities with which we have 
canonized them. 

We are called to note another instance of Winthrop's 

fostering care of Dudley and the colony. He says, " Upon 

this there arose another question about his [Dudley's] house. 

The governor having formerly told him, that he did not well to 

1 Winthrop, i. *j$. 



104 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. ix 

bestow such cost about wainscoting and adorning his house, 
in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard of the neces- 
sity of public charges, and for example, etc., his answer now 
was, that it was for the warmth of his house, and the charge 
was little, being but clapboards nailed to the wall in the form 
of wainscot." x 

Dudley asked to be allowed to resign, because he could 
not peaceably and conscientiously speak and act without 
creating a disturbance. And this privilege of departure was 
denied to him, and the governor proceeds, thus out of the 
kindness of his spirit, adding two more grievances to his 
miserable mischance. If there is a blessing assured to peace- 
makers among the Beatitudes, as there certainly is, Dudley 
in this Court seems to have done very much to deserve it, 
and is entitled to universal sympathy. 

The question of the removal of the governor's house from 
Cambridge, together with a charge on the part of Dudley 
that the governor was taking too much authority upon him- 
self, came up by agreement before the elders at Charlestown, 
August 3, 1632. Dudley said that he had grievances which 
under advice he should let pass, and confine himself to two. 
1 st. " That the governor did not build at Newtowne as agreed, 
and that he thus made a breach of his promise." The gov- 
ernor answered that " he had a house up, and seven or eight 
servants abiding in it, by the day appointed, and for the 
removing of his house, he alleged that, seeing that the rest 
of the assistants went not about to build, and that his neigh- 
bors of Boston had been discouraged from removing thither 
by Mr. Deputy himself, and thereupon had (under all their 
hands) petitioned him, that (according to the promise he 
made to them when they first sat down with him at Boston, 
viz. that he would not remove, except they went with him) 
he would not leave them ; — this was the occasion that he re- 
moved his house. Upon these and other speeches to this 
purpose, the ministers went apart for an hour ; then return- 
ing, they delivered their opinions, that the governor was in 
1 Winthrop, i. *73- 



1631-32] WINTHROP'S HOUSE REMOVED 105 

fault for removing of his house so suddenly, without confer- 
ring with the deputy and the rest of the assistants ; but if 
the deputy were the occasion of discouraging Boston men 
from removing, it would excuse the governor a tanto but 
not a toto." 1 It is well to observe here that the ministers 
do not decide the question whether the deputy had discour- 
aged the Boston men. They did, however, afterwards decide 
in favor of Dudley. They do find Winthrop at fault in the 
removal of his house, and later 2 adjudge that he shall furnish 
a minister to Cambridge because thereof. This was a serious 
matter. Dudley had gone to Cambridge with the express 
agreement that the government and the capital were to be 
removed there. It was with great difficulty that he could 
reconcile himself to his unexpected misfortune; it was the 
work of years, and finally he left Cambridge himself in 1636, 
to reside in Ipswich, and ultimately at Roxbury. 

1 Winthrop, i. *8$. 2 See p. 112 of this volume. 



CHAPTER X 

Winthrop, it seems by the accounts of Dudley and 
Hutchinson, had promised, on the 21st day of December, 
1630, to build his house in Cambridge the next year. He 
now argued that he performed the letter of his promise, but 
the ministers decided that he did not perform the spirit of 
it, and was in fault. Winthrop thereupon, in great conde- 
scension and deference to the " wise and godly ministers," 
but without any change of opinion on his part, said some- 
thing which conceded nothing, and which he hoped would 
be taken as a full reparation for all his fault to him, the 
deponent, unknown. His skillful words were, " The gov- 
ernor, professing himself willing to submit his own opitiion 
to the judgment of so many wise and godly friends, acknow- 
ledges himself faulty." He continued of the same opinion 
himself. He had promised both to go to Cambridge and to 
Boston, and when the hour of reckoning overtook him, he 
went in the direction of least resistance. Moreover, we have 
only his own version of this disagreeable business. Dudley 
left not a word of justification, and his reputation must abide 
the result. The conclusion of the whole matter is that the 
ministers, who were the judges in the case, found Winthrop 
guilty, although he lets himself down very easily in his own 
diary, and there is no other account of the affair. They 
took a recess before entering upon the next and more seri- 
ous complaint. "After dinner the deputy [Dudley] pro- 
ceeded in his complaint, yet with this protestation, that 
what he should charge the governor with, was in love, and 
out of his care of the public, 1 and that the things which he 

1 We may feel confidence that, if he used those words, he meant 
what he said, for he was " too honest or too proud to feign a love he 



1631-32] WINTHROP QUESTIONED 107 

should produce were but for his own satisfaction, and not by- 
way of accusation. Then demanded he of him the ground 
and limits of his authority, whether by the patent or other- 
wise." This was an important and fundamental question, 
and we shall observe later that other persons in the colony 
were solicitous respecting the course of the government in 
this matter of excess of authority. They had tasted tyranny 
before they came to America, and had a dread of one-man 
power. Dudley realized the importance of obedience to law 
in the officers and governors of the people, and more par- 
ticularly so until the government was firmly rooted and 
grounded in the respect and confidence of the masses. 
Winthrop was subsequently impeached on this ground, and, 
although he came out of the contest with credit to himself, 
the charges indicated the public anxiety respecting him. 
Dudley stands well in this respect. He was four years gov- 
ernor, and thirteen years deputy governor, and although 
constantly in public life, and always under the inspection of 
the people, no reflection rests upon his career that he sought 
to secure or retain power. He was, it is true, a member of 
the discredited council for life, with others, but that was 
ornamental, and never vexed the liberties or rights of the 
people by any unfortunate doings. "The governor [Mr. 
Winthrop] answered, that he was willing to stand to that 
which he propounded, and would challenge no greater au- 
thority than he might by the patent. The deputy [Mr. 
Dudley] replied, that then he had no more authority than 
every assistant (except power to call courts, and precedency 

never cherished." He shared with others a reasonable solicitude re- 
specting Winthrop's arbitrary use of authority, which might, if suffered 
in silence, soon extend over all the affairs of the government. The 
disagreeable duty of calling a halt fell naturally and by necessity to 
Dudley, and we cannot fail to note the tender way in which he ap- 
proached this duty ; and also that he is free from jealousy, or a petty 
wish to annoy the governor, or to supplant him. For although we 
have so little of the record, and that little from such a source, yet we 
have enough in various other ways to enable us to determine the prob- 
able limits of his conduct. 



108 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. x 

for honor and order). The governor answered he had more ; 
for the patent, making him a governor, gave him whatsoever 
power belonged to a governor by common law or the stat- 
utes, and desired him to show wherein he had exceeded, 
etc. ; and speaking this somewhat apprehensively, the deputy 
began to be in passion and told the governor that if he were 
so round he would be round x too." 2 Winthrop evidently 
discovered wrath in the person of Dudley, before it began 
so to glow in himself as to reach his consciousness. But he 
had certainly surprised Dudley, when he sent him through 
all the statutes of the realm and the body of the common 
law, to find the limits of gubernatorial power and authority, 
which Dudley had supposed until that moment were con- 
tained in the patent, except certain incidental and implied 
powers which naturally inhere in the office by common con- 
sent. This was not consistent with the uniform practice, 
which was to avoid as much as possible foreign law and 
foreign appeals. 3 He had reason to think that Winthrop 
magnified his office in words, as he had already done in acts. 
The governor admits that he spoke " somewhat apprehen- 
sively." He means, perhaps, sensitively, or with feelings 
bordering on resentment. They had both reached the dan- 

1 The word " round," as here used, means harsh, severe, and shows 
how Dudley regarded what he conceived to be the haughty manner of 
the governor, when, as a citizen and as a patriot, he called his atten- 
tion, among friends in council, to certain matters, in which he was 
believed by others, accidentally or otherwise, to have exceeded his 
powers ; it was giving him an opportunity in a quiet way to explain 
and allay the natural solicitude. The deputy felt for the instant as if 
the moment for revolt had arrived. They had left Charles I. in Eng- 
land, to fall into the hands of a ruler who claimed to be responsible, in 
large part, to the courts beyond the sea, and to be guided by statutes 
and foreign interpretations of the law, rather than the patent as under- 
stood in the colony, although Winthrop was the first to deny the force 
of foreign statutes and the jurisdiction of English courts in other cases. 

2 Winthrop, i. *83. 

3 Rhode Island Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 124, 125, 201 ; Elliot, i. 268, 284; 
Winthrop, ii. *z~]% *282, *28o. ; John Child's New England's Jonas, 
Marvin ed., pp. xxx., xxxi. ; Mass. Col. Rec, 1. 175. 



1631-32] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY WAX WARM 109 

ger line, approaching from opposite directions, one from the 
seat of authority, the other from the people. 

"The governor bade him be round [harsh, severe], if he 
would. So the deputy [Dudley] rose up in great fury and 
passion." * 

Dudley always began the trouble, as Winthrop related it ; 
he was the cause and effect of all the wrong. He had been, 
however, disciplined in a life of experience in judicial service 
and earlier in the army, and above all he was accustomed to 
situations of dignity. He was, moreover, under the power- 
ful restraints of religion. He was in his day accounted both 
"wise and godly." These few pictures of passion, drawn by 
his rival, were intended no doubt to be truthful, but never- 
theless they are both inconsistent with his education, his 
honest profession, and the record of a lifetime before, and 
many official years subsequent to this. There is such a 
thing as holy wrath and righteous indignation. The gov- 
ernor grew very hot also (Dudley, we are left to infer, was 
the cause why the governor, being "much enforced, showed 
a hasty spark"), "so as they both fell into bitterness, but 
by mediation of the mediators [the ministers] they were 
soon pacified. Then the deputy proceeded to particulars as 
followeth : — 

" 1st. By what authority the governor removed the ord- 
nance and erected a fort at Boston ? 

" 2d. By what authority he lent twenty-eight pounds of 
powder to those of Plymouth ? 

" 3d. By what authority he had licensed Edward Johnson 
to sit down at Merrimack ? 

" 4th. By what authority he had given them of Watertown 
leave to erect a weir, upon Charles River, and had disposed 
of lands to divers, etc. ? 

1 Even if he was a little excited, he had the great example of Crom- 
well. " His [Cromwell's] temper was exceeding fiery, as I have known, 
but the flame of it kept down for the most part or soon allayed with 
those moral endowments he had." (Letter of Maidstone to Winthrop, 
Jr., Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d series, i. 193.) 



no THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. x 

"5th. By what authority he had given license to Rat- 
cliff and Grey (being banished men) to stay within our 
limits ? 

" 6th. Why the fines were not levied ? 

" 7th. That when a cause had been voted by the rest of 
the Court, the governor would bring new reasons, and move 
them to alter the sentence ! " * 

To each of these several questions the governor gave rea- 
sons which were sufficient, without doubt, to have caused 
the Court to direct the same action which Winthrop took in 
the premises, so that the conduct of Winthrop was intrin- 
sically correct ; but as a rule his actions ought regularly to 
have followed an order of Court, which they did not. The 
governor ought to have stood ready to answer such proper 
questions, not "apprehensively," but directly and squarely, 
without mental reservations, particularly to the deputy gov- 
ernor and without any resentment because of the liberty 
taken or the interrogatories propounded. " No man is wise 
at all times," and this was one of the instances in which 
Governor Winthrop does not appear at his best, even with 
the great advantage of being allowed to tell the story with 
no opportunity for the other side to be heard. 

The governor proceeded now to give his thoughts and 
opinions respecting the situation, with so much seeming can- 
dor that the world in general has accepted the description, 
as clearly showing the contrast in character between the two 
men, not always to the advantage of Dudley. 

" The deputy having made an end, the governor desired 
the mediators to consider whether he had exceeded his au- 
thority or not." The mediators were silent, and did not 
decide until a subsequent meeting. 2 It is not unreasonable 
to believe that they thought, as we think, that the matters 
charged were not important or injurious, but that the gov- 
ernor was taking things into his own hands in a manner 
which ought to be checked at once. However, since the 
deputy had administered the needful caujtion, and since a 
1 Winthrop, i. *84, *Ss- 2 lb., i. 88. 



1631-32] DUDLEY PRUDENT, NOT PENURIOUS in 

word to the wise is sufficient, they adroitly kept out of the 
business, but subsequently sustained Dudley. 1 They were 
not a tribunal which was bound to come to judgment ; they 
were only a group of mutual friends intent upon the best 
interests of the colony. " And how little cause the deputy 
had to charge him with it ; for if he had made some slips in 
two or three years' government, he ought rather to have 
governed them [it was not the things done, so much as it' 
was the assumption of growing power and authority], seeing 
he could not be charged that he had taken advantage of 
his authority to oppress or wrong any man, or to benefit 
himself ; but, for want of a public stock, had disbursed all 
common charges out of his own estate, whereas the deputy 
would never lay out one penny," etc. Here the generosity 
and patriotic, self-sacrificing character of the governor ap- 
pear in contrast to the selfishness of Dudley. He had 
already prepared us to expect this in his graphic picture of 
Dudley " selling seven bushels and an half of corn to receive 
ten for it after harvest." And so far as I have been able to 
learn, it is from these two passages that the false story of 
Dudley's stingy character originated. 

It must be admitted without question that in money mat- 
ters Dudley was prudent and careful. He could not have 
lifted the estate of the Earl of Lincoln out of poverty with- 
out that quality and the power which came from it. It was 
then thought to be greatly to his credit. He was the busi- 
ness man of the colony. Dudley lived and acted according 
to the doctrine and philosophy of Burns : — 

" To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, 

Assiduous wait upon her ; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 

That 's justified by honor ; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Nor for a train-attendant ; 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent." 

1 Page 1 12 of this volume. 



U2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. x 

Dudley's trades in corn, as we have said, were not unusual 
or unfair, and have long since been the custom. Besides, 
the great scarcity of seed corn at that time made the rate 
more reasonable, and if we had the facts, it might be shown 
that Dudley really did the thing as a special favor to his 
friends, and that if he had been mean, he would have re- 
tained the seed corn and used it himself. It was no doubt 
an act of kindness, in part, from his standpoint. His side 
of this episode has not been told, at least not by himself. 

Dudley served the public twenty-three years faithfully 
and honestly, and never came under condemnation in office, 
and never received anything, so far as appears on record, ex- 
cept a gratuity now and then towards the end of his career, 
declared always to be no just payment of the value of the 
service. So Dudley might have claimed to be a generous 
public benefactor, but he never did. 1 

We are permitted now and then to catch a glimpse of the 
real nature of Dudley, of far greater interest than any direct 
efforts of Governor Winthrop himself, or anybody else, to 
describe him. Because in the study of character every day, 
the view when persons are off guard, when the mask is up, 
when their thought is far away from themselves, enables 
one to penetrate deepest into their interior life. 

The ministers tried later to reconcile these persons, and 
the account by Winthrop is as follows : — 

" The ministers afterwards, for an end of the difference 
between the governor and deputy, ordered that the gov- 
ernor should procure them a minister at Newtown, and con- 
tribute somewhat towards his maintenance for a time ; or, 
if he could not by the spring effect that, then to give the 
deputy, toward his charges in building there, twenty pounds. 
[Dudley stands ahead in this dispute ; there was probably a 
stronger case for him than appears in the Journal of Win- 
throp.] The governor accepted this order, and promised to 
perform it in one of the kinds. But the deputy, having 
received one part of the order, returned the same to the 
1 Morton's New England's Memorial, 166. 



1631-32] DUDLEY AND THE FORT IN BOSTON 113 

governor, with this reason to Mr. Wilson, that he was so 
well persuaded of the governor's love to him, and did prize 
it so much, as, if they had given him one hundred pounds 
instead of twenty pounds, he would not have taken it." * 
Here is the same elevation of soul, the same Christian mag- 
nanimity, and no one can read these words and not feel that 
a wrong has been done to Dudley by the epithets which 
have been applied to him. 

Winthrop says further, " Notwithstanding the heat of 
contention, which had been between the governor and the 
deputy, yet they usually met about their affairs, and that 
without appearance of any breach or discontent ; and ever 
after kept peace and good correspondency together, in love 
and friendship." 

There is an entry in the Journal, page * 1 1 7, November, 
1633, which makes this last quotation a trifle premature, but 
it is correct in the main. The entry is as follows : — 

" Some differences fell out still, now and then, between 
the governor and deputy, which yet were soon healed. It 
has been ordered in Court that all hands should help to the 
finishing of the fort of Boston, and all the towns in the bay 
had gone once over, and most the second time ; but those 
of Newtown being warned, the deputy would not suffer them 
to come, neither did acquaint the governor with the cause, 
which was, for that Salem and Saugus had not brought in 
money for their parts." Dudley felt that there was a wrong 
which could only be remedied by holding out until it was 
righted. And he may well have presumed that the gov- 
ernor knew and understood it. "The governor, hearing of 
it, wrote friendly to him, showing him that the intent of the 
Court was, that the work should be done by those in the 
bay, and that, after, the others should pay a proportionable 
sum for the house, etc., which must be done by money ; and 
therefore desired him that he would send in his neighbors. 
Upon this, Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hooker came to the gov- 
ernor to treat with him about it, and brought a letter from 
1 Winthrop, i. *88. 



U4 THOMAS DUDLEY ch. x 

the deputy full of bitterness and resolution not to send till 
Salem," etc. We do not know what was in the letter, but 
we can feel sure that after he had been deeply disappointed 
that Cambridge was not the capital of the colony, and after 
he had at great patriotic and personal labor and cost con- 
structed the palisade there for the defense of the entire 
colony, and since, moreover, he did not believe in either the 
present settlement of Boston or the fortification of it, and 
all the inhabitants of Cambridge felt as he did, that he would 
advance cautiously. We can under these circumstances 
have some charity for the people of Cambridge, and some 
sympathy, when they said other towns as remote, and need- 
ing this more, must do their part, and then they would do 
their part also. " The governor told them it should rest till 
the Court, and withal gave the letter to Mr. Hooker with 
this speech : I am not willing to keep such an occasion of 
provocation by me." Which speech does great credit to 
Governor Winthrop. 

Now the politic Winthrop thought that as Dudley was 
exceedingly in need of hogs, he would test him ; and would 
couple two of the deputy's dearest friends in the tempta- 
tion. Bread and meat are ancient temptations. Let him 
tell the story : — 

" And soon after, he wrote to the deputy (who had before 
desired to buy a fat hog or two of him, being somewhat short 
of provisions) to desire him to send for one (which he would 
have sent him, if he had known when his occasion had been 
to have made use of it), and to accept it as a testimony of 
his good-will [Whittier has beautifully said a ' genuine token 
of love and good-will has no limitations of time, and is never 
out of place'] ; and lest he should make any scruple of it, 
he made Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hooker [who both sojourned 
in his house] partakers with him. 

" Upon this the deputy returned this answer : ' Your 
overcoming yourself hath overcome me. Mr. Haynes, Mr. 
Hooker, and myself do most kindly accept your good-will ; 
but we desire without offense to refuse your offer and that 



1631-33] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY FRIENDS 115 

I may only trade with you for two hogs ; ' and so very lov- 
ingly concluded." 1 

Misers and niggards are made of sterner, more unrelent- 
ing stuff than this. His great, chivalrous heart welcomed 
the touch of kindness and reconciliation as the hart the 
water brook. It was not lucre, but love, which reached him ; 
he was not sordid, he had his conversation in heaven, where 
all is love. We are left to guess as to the attitude and feel- 
ings of Dudley. We have not a line about all this over his 
signature, and must spell out all we can between the lines 
of his rival's Journal. 

It is delightful to remember that after 1633 we hear of no 
more disputes or dissensions between these great leaders, the 
two foremost men in this most important emigration in the 
tide of time. They lived and wrought together sixteen more 
eventful years in beautiful harmony, without a record of 
strife or variance, until Governor Winthrop died, in 1649. 
Who can find the heart to inveigh against or disparage the 
memory and record of either of them ? They both belong 
to the illustrious school of Cromwell, Hampden, Pym, and 
their coadjutors on the other side of the sea. Their honor 
and renown is a part of the wealth and heritage of their 
country, and it is not a patriotic service to detract from the 
character of either of them. 

There is a beautiful picture presented of these noble men, 
by Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, worthy of perpetual remem- 
brance, mentioned elsewhere. It is a lasting covenant of 
love and good- will between them at Concord, Mass., April 
24, 1638. 

1 Winthrop, i. *n8. 



CHAPTER XI 

A church was soon established at each of the various 
settlements of Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, and of other 
towns, on the same model as that of Salem. Every hard- 
ship was endured by these heroic men and women during 
their first bitter winter in America. Hunger, privation, and 
disease reduced their numbers constantly, weighed down their 
spirits with unrelenting anxiety, and unnerved them in the 
inevitable struggle into which each was forced daily to pre- 
serve themselves and their friends. The fortitude of these 
people, and their unruffled contentment in the midst of suf- 
ferings and perils, have never ceased to receive the merited 
admiration of thoughtful people. Winthrop wrote to his 
wife out of the depths of his overwhelming trouble, " I thank 
God I like so well to be here, as I do not repent my coming. 
I would not have altered my course, though I had foreseen 
all these afflictions. I never had more content of mind." 
And Dudley, after saying in his letter to the Countess of 
Lincoln, that up to December, 1630, "there died by esti- 
mation about two hundred at the least ; so low hath the 
Lord brought us ! " manifests the same sweet resignation 
in the following words : " Well, yet they who survived were 
not discouraged, but bearing God's corrections with humil- 
ity, and trusting in his mercies, and considering how after a 
lower ebb he raised up our neighbors at Plymouth, we began 
again in December to consult about a fit place to build a 
town upon." And later in the same letter he says: "Yet 
many of us labored to bear it as comfortably as we could, 
remembering the end of our coming hither, and knowing the 
power of God, who can support and raise us again, and useth 
to bring his servants low that the meek may be made glo- 



1630] INDIANS CARED FOR u 7 

rious by deliverance." 2 Everything which was now done at 
the very beginning by these remarkable people in this new 
and strange land will always have an extraordinary attraction 
for the zealous student of American history. 

They came to America in a large measure to Christianize 
the Indians ; they sought liberty for themselves and their 
posterity, and also to redeem the wild aborigines from dark- 
ness to light. 2 The experience of the English in Virginia 
had already assured them that these sons of the forest were 
not to be implicitly confided in and trusted. It was a diffi- 
cult and delicate matter to establish and maintain j ust rela- 
tions with them. Even two and one half centuries later 
Indians are accounted only wards of the government. It is 
to the honor of the colony that during this early period they 
paid the Indians for their lands. The Court of Assistants 
thought it inexpedient to trade in money with them. It may 
have been in part because with the money they might pro- 
cure arms and ammunition from the enemies of the colony, 
but most probably the Court took this position because all 
the money in the colony was far too little to do its legitimate 
business. They also deemed it unsafe to employ them as 
servants in their households. 3 They seem to have admin- 
istered justice without respect of persons. Sir Richard Sal- 
tonstall was fined at one Court for his absence from Court, 
and two months later for whipping two several persons with- 
out the presence of another assistant. He was required to 
give to Sagamore John a hogshead of corn for the hurt his 
cattle had done to the Indian in his corn. 

Every page of the records of Massachusetts Bay in the 
early years of its history reveals the manifold crimes and 
misdemeanors of servants and adventurers, who with no- 
thing to lose, and a possible opportunity to win a fortune, 
attached themselves to this emigration. 

1 Young's Chron., 320, 321. 

2 Conversion of the Indians. Young's Chron., 133, 142, 202, 211, 
215, 258, 273, 364. 

8 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 83. 



n8 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xi 

The Court is called upon at one time to consider the con- 
duct of masters and servants towards each other, to punish 
ill speeches of servants to masters, to restrain drunkenness 
and the immoderate use of strong water ; at another time to 
set up ferries, boundaries between towns, and to name them ; 
to make rules for the restraining of cows, horses, goats, and 
swine ; to impanel juries ; to satisfy Indians who had been 
overreached by white men ; to punish wicked Indians and 
venders of quack and worthless medicines ; and to order bad 
and useless people to be returned to England. These are a 
few of the matters coming constantly before the Court, and 
at every session Governor Dudley had a conspicuous share 
in their settlement. There were also questions about the 
price of commodities and of labor to be fixed, where no suffi- 
cient market determined such matters, and persons were 
therefore inclined to take advantage of the freedom from 
restraint in which they suddenly found themselves. It was 
indeed this newborn freedom, which all recently enfranchised 
persons are wont to esteem to be unbridled license to do 
what they please, which gave the Court its greatest anxiety 
and kept it busy with manifold new, unheard-of, and before 
unadjudicated questions. 

We have already considered the action of the General 
Court in October, 1630, by which it was provided that free- 
men should choose the assistants, and that the assistants 
from among their own number should select the governor 
and deputy governor, who with assistants should make the 
laws and appoint officers to execute them, without any further 
aid from the freemen, who had thereby delegated for a short 
period their law-making powers to the assistants. 

The freemen were then few, and possessed by a profound 
sense of their insufficiency and lack of qualifications for 
legislators (a feeling of self-depreciation which has rarely 
been known to enter the human mind in any previous or 
subsequent age in human history). 

The General Court in a measure confirmed the above in 
May, 163 1, and added to it a provision, annexed to and in 



1631-32] UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE 119 

continuation of this act, which has been the subject of more 
relentless criticism still. " And to the end the body of the 
Commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was 
likewise ordered and agreed that for the time to come no 
man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, 
but such as are members of some of the churches within the 
limits of the same." * The standard in Rhode Island was 
ownership of land. 2 

If the motive was the one expressed in the act itself, viz. : 
that the " body of the Commons may be preserved of hon- 
est and good men," most persons, in the light of more 
recent politics, would be inclined to approve of the ideal 
aimed at by the fathers, even if they could not commend 
their method of advance towards it. The result of this rule 
was that in three years there were in the colony three hun- 
dred and fifty voters, while the aggregate population was 
three or possibly four thousand persons. 

The expediency of the union of church and state has now 
been under discussion many years, and great light has in 
recent centuries been derived from the experience of nations, 
both with and without such union. The Puritans had no 
such experience to reveal the way to them. Their ideas of 
government were derived from England and Holland, their 
charter, the rules of the English common law, and the Bible. 

It certainly was not their original purpose to use their 
government primarily to disseminate new religious ideas. 
They were considering only the purification of the Church 
of England. They wanted to divest her of the Romish 
traditions and usages, which in their opinion were no essen- 
tial part of her, and greatly retarded her usefulness. They 
knew no state without union with religion. It does not yet 
appear that any state can survive without religion. 3 The 
experiment was indeed attempted in the French Revolution, 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 87 ; Story on the Const, of the United States, 
ii. §§ 1846-1850. 

2 Narr. and Critical Hist, of America, iii. 338. 

3 De Tocqueville's Democ. in Amer. i. 44, 334, 337. 



120 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xi 

and signally failed. The church should be secondary and 
subject to the temporal power in civil matters, but in its own 
realm in matters of belief, conscience, and worship, it should 
be supreme. This should be accorded to all alike, to indi- 
vidual men, to associations whose usages and services are 
conformable to good morals and pure government, and the 
civil authority must in all cases be the final judge in this 
cause. It is an immense satisfaction that in the highest 
form of spiritual worship no man or court has power to inter- 
vene or intercept the service. It has been claimed, with 
much reason, that since the ministers received the various 
candidates into the church membership, the power was ulti- 
mately reposed in them to determine who should be eligible 
as freemen and entitled to vote. It must not be overlooked, 
however, that the personal interests of the ministers lay in 
the direction of extending their membership and the growth 
of their flocks. It does not appear that any were excluded 
from entrance to the church on political grounds. And if 
there were to be a religious test as a gateway to politics, 
it may be reasonably doubted whether anything more just 
could have been substituted for the learned, sagacious min- 
isters who were busy sifting the population to discover the 
willing, obedient, and elect. 

These Puritans, in their true allegiance to the English 
church and throne at the start, had not yet thought of a 
separation of church and state. Their ministers were learned 
in the Scriptures, which they regarded as the great ultimate 
source of law and justice, and some of them were also the 
most learned men in the English common law in the col- 
ony. And while they were not received into the positions of 
assistants, or of the Commons, or into executive or judicial 
stations, they were exceedingly well prepared to instruct 
and inform the government and all persons interested as to 
the meaning of Biblical and common law. 

Disability to hold office in England continued against Jews 
to the middle of this century, and against Catholics and 
Friends to the early part of it. The first legislative body in 



1631-32] PURITAN ACTION IN PART VINDICATED 121 

America, which sat at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, was elected 
by all the adult male inhabitants of the colony, a policy which 
has continued nearly everywhere, to the extent of excluding 
both from the franchise and from public office the women, 
one half of the population of the country, who bear their 
share of the burdens of government. The political dogma 
that the franchise, or the right to hold political office, is a 
natural right, like life, has received in this country almost 
universal disapproval. It is declared not to be a right for 
anybody, but a privilege conferred upon persons and classes 
by the state, according to its own will, in the most arbitrary 
exercise of its own judgment. Not even the Constitution of 
the United States guarantees the right to vote. It is no 
privilege or immunity secured to American citizenship by 
virtue of that document. If this is the correct theory in this 
matter, then it follows that the General Court of Massachu- 
setts, on May 30, 163 1, was both by precedent and subse- 
quent franchise fully justified in the exercise of its discretion, 
in saying that none but church members shall be admitted 
into the body politic. What better class was there in the 
colony, if they were to select one ? Their work for thirty 
years justifies the wisdom of their choice. They did unwise 
and unjust things during that period, we freely admit ; but 
their great constructive work nevertheless remains as a 
monument of their integrity, breadth of understanding, and 
enlightened conceptions of the state which was gradually 
being evolved under their guiding hands. 

It is popular in some quarters now to characterize their 
action as intolerant, bigoted, and despotic. But it bears the 
mark of none of these things. They then had, as we now 
have, a numerous population of recent immigrants who had 
no conception of the importance and magnitude of this great 
undertaking in the interests of humanity, who were only 
adventurers seeking opportunities to secure a living, without 
interest in politics or religion, or the fortunes of the enter- 
prise beyond themselves. 

A portion of our recent population from Asia we have 



122 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xi 

found undesirable, and have limited further immigration. 
We have proceeded in like manner with the paupers of 
Europe, and have assured their governments that they are 
in no way useful to us, and have requested them to retain 
them at home. We are aware that the people excluded by 
the Puritans were as a rule respectable, neither paupers nor 
inferior races ; but the right to exclude is of universal appli- 
cation. And still our shores are swarming with poor, igno- 
rant, and often criminal immigrants, whom we cannot in three 
generations assimilate with our native population to become 
worthy, educated American citizens. Are we required in the 
name of our religion, of justice, humanity, or right reason, to 
place political power, the government of ourselves, of our 
families, and the fortunes of our country in the keeping of 
these persons, and to turn over our institutions, the most 
sacred hope of mankind, to these miserable creatures, who 
were the very peril of government at home before they came, 
the material for mobs and revolutions the world over ? Does 
not all history justify the exercise of arbitrary discretion by 
our fathers ? The Puritans had no confidence in these people 
without religion, and with a conviction that possessed our 
fathers also in the days of Washington, they said, the foun- 
dation of this nation must be laid upon the intelligence and 
virtue of the rulers. And what safer line could they draw 
between the classes of population, to secure intelligence and 
virtue in the rulers, than to set apart the church members, 
who had this magnificent undertaking at heart as the mere 
enterprising fortune-hunter had not ? The whole matter is 
creditable to the thoughtful foresight and prudent wisdom of 
these wonderful, divinely guided men, the founders of Massa- 
chusetts. No man can successfully take exception to this 
fundamental action of the Puritans until he is prepared to 
show that the world would have been in a better condition 
if this colony had been planted by other persons, of other 
tenets, other education, and other convictions — a thing 
which we believe, with all earnestness, to be impossible. 



CHAPTER XII 

It may justly be accounted a distinguished honor to have 
been the founder of a city which contains within its limits 
the greatest university in America ; which for two and one- 
half centuries has been incessantly pouring its healthful 
stream of influence into the life-currents of our republic ; 
which also has drawn into its inclosure scholars, poets, ora- 
tors, and statesmen, who have been great literary, social, and 
political leaders in our history, and have contributed vastly 
to the best quality of our national character and literature. 
Dudley and his son-in-law, Bradstreet, were the first to settle 
at Cambridge, in the spring of 163 1. 1 Dudley was then 
the more eminent of the two, and manifested such zeal in 
securing the residence of the governor and assistants at 
Newtown, both before and after his own settlement there, 
that he seems entitled to the ever-increasing merit of being 
the founder of the University City on the Charles River. 
His house was placed between the river and the present site 
of the university, at the northwesterly corner of Dunster 
and South streets, near its southern termination at Marsh 
Lane. 2 It was very near to the first house for public worship, 
erected in 1632 (with a bell on it), on the corner of Dunster 
and Mt. Auburn streets. It is probable that neither was 
the chimney built of wood nor the roof covered with thatch, 
which were materials often used for such purposes. 3 

The capital was retained in Boston until Dudley was 
chosen governor, May 14, 1634, in place of Winthrop, but 
upon this change it was at once removed to Cambridge, and 

1 Paige's Hist. Camb., 8. 

2 Holmes's Hist. Camb., 8, note. 

3 Paige's Hist. Camb., 247 ; Winthrop's Journal, i. */\f). 



124 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xn 

all the Courts were holden there for two years, during the 
administration of both Governor Dudley and of Governor 
Haynes, and until the election of Governor Vane, in 1636. 1 

Governor Winthrop, and the greater part of the assistants, 
in 1 63 1, did not make Cambridge their place of residence, 
yet they seem to have regarded it on the whole, being more 
interior, as a safer place for the capital in case of danger 
from the sea. It is in any event a notable fact, whatever 
their reasons might have been, that they caused George 
Maisters to make a water passage by the enlargement of a 
creek from Charles River up into the heart of the settle- 
ment. This waterway was made twelve feet broad and 
seven feet deep, and on the 5th of July, 163 1, there was 
levied on the other towns, excepting Newtown, the sum of 
thirty pounds to pay the cost thereof. 2 "This canal still 
exists on the westerly side of College Wharf, from Charles 
River nearly to South Street. It was a natural creek, en- 
larged and deepened thus far, from which point, turning 
westerly, it extended along the southerly and westerly sides 
of South and Eliot streets, and crossed Brattle Street, where 
the town ordered a causeway and foot-bridge to be con- 
structed, Jan. 4, 1635-36." 3 Passengers and freight could 
by this channel be conveyed to almost every door in the 
settlement, in boats from the sea, by its connection with the 
river, as the houses and homes of Venice are approached by 
canals. The residence of Governor Dudley seems to have 
been beside this watercourse, near its greatest curve. Here, 
in 1633, might often have been seen John Haynes, who 
was the third governor of Massachusetts and the first gov- 
ernor of Connecticut ; the Rev. Thomas Hooker, who was 
the first minister of Cambridge, and as a pioneer led his 
flock in 1636 to the settlement of Connecticut, and who, it 
is said, more than "any other man, deserves to be called 
the father of American democracy ; " and with these two 
distinguished founders of states, also Thomas Dudley, taking 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 116, 173. 2 lb., i. 88, 90. 

8 Paige's Hist. Camb., 9, note. 



1631-32] PALISADE IN CAMBRIDGE 125 

boat for the Court in Boston, or for errands of business or 
deeds of charity, or on missions of mercy to neighboring 
settlements, for Haynes and Hooker sojourned on their first 
arrival from England, in 1633, at the home of Dudley, 1 until 
they had homes of their own at or before 1635, when they 
are known to have built separate houses. 

But the public interest in Cambridge, or possibly the 
safety of the colony at large, called forth a more munificent 
expenditure there by the Court of Assistants, February 3, 
163 1. 2 "It was ordered there should be threescore pounds 
levied out of the several plantations within the limits of this 
patent, towards the making of a palisade about Newtowne, 
viz., Watertown 8£, Newtowne 3^", Chariest own ?£, Med- 
ford $£,, Saugus and Marble Harbor 6jQ, Salem 4^ 10s., 
Boston 8£, Roxbury jjQ, Dorchester £7, Weymouth $£, 
Winisemet 30s." The influential leadership of Governor 
Dudley in the affairs of Cambridge is shown by his impal- 
ing there a thousand acres of land without the order of 
court, to protect the inhabitants and their flocks from the 
ravages of wild beasts, and the sudden and unexpected at- 
tacks of savages. 3 " This fortification was actually made ; 
and the fosse which was then dug around the town, was in 
some places visible in this century. It commenced at Brick 
Wharf (originally called Windmill Hill), and ran along the 
northern side of the present Common in Cambridge, and 
through what was then a thicket, but now constitutes a part 
of the cultivated grounds of Nathaniel Jarvis, beyond which 
it cannot be distinctly traced. It inclosed above a thousand 
acres." 4 

We find a more complete account in Paige's " History 

1 Winthrop's Journal, i. *u8. 2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 93. 

3 Winthrop, i. *8s. 

4 Colonel T. W. Higginson, the orator on the two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the settlement of Cambridge, held December 28, 1880, 
said, " It [Cambridge] is to be a fortified village, created after some 
delays, and under the inexpressive name of Newtown. Even after 
Winthrop has abandoned the new settlement, stout Dudley secures an 
appropriation of sixty pounds to build a • pallysadoe, or stockade, around 



126 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xn 

of Cambridge," page 10, note, as follows : " The location of 
the greater part of this fence, or 'pale,' is designated with 
tolerable accuracy by the ancient records of possessions and 
conveyances. Commencing -in the present college yard, 
near the northwesterly angle of Gore Hall, and extending 
eastwardly, it passed very near the junction of Ellsworth 
Avenue with Cambridge Street to the line between Cam- 
bridge and Charlestown (now Somerville), at its angle on 
Line Street, near Cambridge Street, and thence followed 
that line to the creek, a few rods easterly from the track of 
the Grand Junction Railroad. Commencing again at the 
point first mentioned, the fence extended southwardly to 
the marsh near the junction of Holyoke Place with Mount 
Auburn Street. The kind of fence erected in the colony 
later is indicated in an order passed Dec. 5, 1636 : ' That 
the common pales in all places, to be made after this day, 
shall be done with sufficient posts and rails, and not with 
crotches.' ,: There is a beautiful and picturesque group of 
willows still standing, it is thought, as stated by Higginson 
and others, on a part of the line of this palisade and fosse. 
We have entered thus into the several accounts of its struc- 
ture and history, because it seems to have been so directly 
the work of Dudley, or at least he appears to have been the 

it.' A thousand acres are ordered to be thus impaled with trees set in 
the ground ; a mile and a half of trees being thus placed, at the very 
lowest estimate (that of wood), . . . the stockade not including the 
side toward Charles River. What a task for the men of this little set- 
tlement to fell, remove, and plant these thousands of trees, and to dig 
round them a fosse or trench, so well executed that I remember parts 
of it still existing as a ditch in my boyhood ! The willows on the foot- 
ball ground of the students, at the edge of Oxford Street, are the last 
memorial of that great labor undertaken two centuries and a half ago. 
. . . The pallysadoe keeps the new village safe." (Exercises in Cele- 
brating the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement 
of Cambridge, 46, 47.) 

The identity of this fosse and palisade has been questioned, but the 
authority of Holmes and Higginson, sustained by a clear tradition 
reaching over only two centuries and a half, seems quite sufficient. 
(Prince, ii. 57; Rev. Abiel Holmes's Hist. Camb., 9.) 



1631-32] PALISADE IN CAMBRIDGE 127 

chief projector. That he had the influence to carry the 
Court of Assistants with him to raise this large sum to de- 
fend the plantation and the colony, and that he had the 
energy in a public emergency to do the needful service and 
assume the risk of being able to convince his associates of 
its expediency, are conclusive facts as to his executive force 
and weight of character at this period in the history of the 
colony. 

But it is generally thought that matters of far greater 
importance than the payment for the palisade resulted from 
this action of the assistants. When Watertown received 
the warrant for its portion of this tax, "the pastor and 
elders, etc., assembled the people, and delivered their opin- 
ions that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for 
fear of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage." 
Here is supposed to appear the right of the more direct 
representatives of the people in the House of Commons or 
House of Representatives in the legislature to originate tax 
bills and assessments of money. And in confirmation of 
this view, although the pastor of Watertown was immedi- 
ately reduced to submission by the Court, at the next Gen- 
eral Court, May 9, 1632, 1 "It was ordered that there should 
be two of every plantation appointed to confer with the 

1 Mr. J. A. Doyle evidently regards Winthrop as the chief oligarch 
at the beginning of Massachusetts, because he disposed of the people 
so summarily in the Watertown matter (Winthrop, i. *7o), and on other 
occasions when they appealed to him or to the government (Winthrop, 
i. *I28, *I29). He says : " We may be sure, too, that in fact the men of 
Watertown were contending against an oligarchical spirit, which was 
probably made all the more dangerous by the conspicuous personal 
merit of the man in whom it was embodied." (The English in Amer., 
i. 140.) Dudley was made governor in 1634 by the triumphant party 
which then secured the law that " none but the General Court hath 
power to raise monies and taxes." (Mass. Col. Rec, i. 117.) It seems 
to us that the word " oligarch " is not justly applied here. The supreme 
power was not vested in a small and exclusive class, but in all church 
members. If it be said that at one time they constituted a small por- 
tion of the population, the same is true, in the United States to-day : the 
women, minors, unnaturalized persons, and others, have civil rights, 



128 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xn 

Court about raising of public stock ; " and singularly enough, 
the names of Oldeham and Masters, both of Watertown, 
were the first on the committee. Watertown was vindi- 
cated, truth crushed to earth had arisen, and Prince says 
an " embryo parliament " had appeared. 1 The incipient idea 
of a House of Representatives in the legislature of Mas- 
sachusetts had been evolved through Dudley's venture to 
impale a thousand acres at Cambridge, and trust the Court 
and people to indemnify him. But it did not extend to a 
share in the making of laws until May 14, 1634. 

All this jealousy of the government had resulted from 
the power given by the freemen, October 19, 1630, to the 
governor and assistants to make laws and choose officers to 
execute them. 2 Experience with new power in the hands of 
the assistants almost at once aroused the suspicion of the 
freemen that they had committed an error, and rendered 
them jealous of the exercise of authority. Savage and others 
seem to consider the action of the assistants as a usurpation, 
unauthorized by the charter. 3 We have already considered 
this question, but a few new observations are desirable in 
this connection. 

It would appear that the views of the Court at that time, 
giving contemporary opinions, are entitled to much weight, 
although influenced a little, possibly, by a desire to sustain 
themselves and their own action ; yet from what we know of 
them, we can believe that their chief solicitude was to be 
right, not only because of their great personal integrity, but 
because every act and every secret thing was in constant 

but not political privileges, and are a large portion of the population. 
The representatives of the people who make the laws at present are 
few compared to the whole number; we do not now call them an oli- 
garchy. When in 1632 the Court of Assistants made laws and appoint- 
ments, it was by the authority of the General Court, as the agents or 
representatives of all the people who had any rights under the charter. 
And opprobrious epithets do not apply to them. 

1 Prince, ii. 60; Winthrop, i. *7o, *y6; Mass. Col. Rec, i. 93-95. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 79. 

3 Winthrop, i. *7o, note by Savage. 



1631-32] ONE-HOUSE PARLIAMENT FOR ONE YEAR 129 

danger of being brought into vigorous examination by the 
home government, and of putting in peril the whole under- 
taking. 

Governor Winthrop told the people in effect that they had 
by their own action created a parliament of one house for one 
year, and they must abide by its action until the time had 
expired, when they might change it, which they did not wholly 
until May 14, 1634. 1 This is said to be in violation of the 
charter, but they were good lawyers and knew the charter. 2 
It distinguishes Dudley that he became governor under the 
political change which elevated the freemen as represent- 
atives to the legislature. 

There are a few notes from the town book of Cambridge 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 118; Winthrop, i. 128, Savage's note. 

2 The only words of the charter which appear to relate to legislative 
action are as follows : " That the governor, or, in his absence, the 
deputy governor, of the said company for the time being, and such of 
the assistants and freemen of the said company as shall be present, or 
the greater number of them so assembled, whereof the governor or 
deputy governor and six of the assistants, at the least to be seven, 
shall have full power and authority to choose, nominate, and appoint 
such and so many others as they shall think fit, and that shall be willing 
to accept the same, to be free of the said company and body, and them 
into the same to admit, and to elect and constitute such officers as they 
shall think fit and requisite for the ordering, managing, and dispatching 
of the affairs of the said governor and company and their successors. 
And to make laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said 
company, and for the government and ordering of the said land and 
plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same, as to them 
from time to time shall be thought meet." 

Thus it would appear that the governor or deputy and six of the as- 
sistants were fully authorized and empowered under the charter to elect 
freemen and to make laws, order as to the land, and govern the people. 
That there was no law against the participation of all the freemen in 
legislative action, nor on the other hand was there any law requiring them 
to participate, or rendering the laws or ordinances invalid if they were 
not present by themselves or their representatives, appears clear. There 
seems to have been in the case considered the required number of seven, 
therefore their action was valid. As to its expediency, there may have 
been, and may still be, reasonable doubt, but we can discover none as to 
the validity of the action of the assistants in assessing the tax. 



i 3 o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. XII 

which have a special interest in the daily life of Dudley on 
and after 1632-33. It is still extant, and begins with "An 
agreement made by general consent, for a monthly meeting. 
Imprimis, That every person undersubscribed shall [meet] 
every first Monday in every month, within [the] meeting 
house, in the afternoon, within half [an hour] after the ring- 
ing of the bell ; 1 and that every [one] that makes not his per- 
sonal appearance there [and] continues there, without leave 
from the [ ] until the meeting be ended, shall forfeit 
[for each] default xii. pence : and if it be not paid [before the 
next] meeting, then to double it, and so until [it be paid]." 
The historian of Cambridge says that " although a general 
subscription seems to have been contemplated, only two sig- 
natures are appended, namely, Thomas Dudley and John 
Haynes ; and Mr. Haynes must have subscribed his name 
several months after the order was adopted, as he did not 
arrive until Sept. 3, 1633. At the first meeting holden in 
pursuance of this 'agreement,' several municipal arrange- 
ments were made to secure the beauty and safety of the 
town, to wit : Jan. 7, 1632-3. ' It is ordered, that no person 
whatever [shall set] up any house in the bounds of this 
town [without] leave from the major part. Further, it is 
agreed, by a joint consent, [that the] town shall not be 
enlarged until all [the vacant] places be filled with houses. 
Further, it is agreed, that all the houses [within] the bounds 
of the town shall be covered [with] slate or board, and not 
with thatch.' " 

It must assist us very much in discovering how fully the 
influence of Governor Dudley entered into the plans and 
government of Cambridge at its very beginning, if we note 
his words in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, March 28, 
163 1, on this subject: "For the prevention whereof in our 
new town, intended this summer to be builded, we have 
ordered that no man there shall build his chimney with 
wood, nor cover his house with thatch." 2 . . . "Further it is 

1 Page 123 of this volume. 

2 Young's Chron., 339; Paige's Hist. Camb., 17, 18. 



1632-33] TOWN BOOK OF CAMBRIDGE 131 

ordered that all [the houses shall] range even, and stand 
just six [feet on each man's] own ground from the street." 
Dudley is the only one who had subscribed at the date of 
the several orders herein mentioned. This provision about 
setting houses back from the street, although not far, is 
an evidence of his and their taste and regard to picturesque 
effects, in the early beginning, in the laying out of that little 
town, which was destined to become a renowned and beauti- 
ful city. The town was constructed from the first with a 
view to elegance, the streets being arranged in nearly paral- 
lel lines, the houses regularly placed, the whole symmetrical 
and compact, suitable for the future seat of government. 
It was bounded "northerly by Harvard Street and Square, 
westerly by Brattle Square and Eliot Street, southerly by 
Eliot and South streets, and easterly by Holyoke Street, 
which was then very crooked." * 

William Wood, who was in the colony the first year, in his 
" New England's Prospect," says : " This place was first in- 
tended for a city ; but upon more serious considerations it 
was not thought so fit : being too far from the sea being the 
greatest inconvenience it hath. This is one of the neatest 
and best compacted towns in New England, having many 
fair structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The 
inhabitants, most of them, are very rich, and well stored with 
cattle of all sorts, having many hundred acres of ground 
paled in with one general fence, which is about a mile and a 
half long, which secures all their weaker cattle from the wild 
beasts." 2 

It is probable that while Wood presents in the above 
extract Governor Winthrop's reason for his preference for 
Boston, so Johnson, in his " Wonder- Working Providence," 
sets forth Governor Dudley's opposite choice as follows : 
"Wherefore they rather made choice to enter farther among 
the Indians, than hazard the fury of malignant adversaries, 
who in a rage might pursue them, and therefore chose a 

1 Paige's Hist. Camb., 18, note 1. 

2 Young's Chron., 402. 



132 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xn 

place situated on Charles River, between Charles Town and 
Watertown, where they erected a town called New Town, 
now named Cambridge. ... It hath well ordered streets 
comely completed with the fair building of Harvard College, 
their first pastor was the faithful and laborious Mr. Hooker, 
whose books are of great request among the faithful people 
of Christ." 1 

This was probably one of Dudley's reasons, as we have 
before mentioned, for the earnest effort which he made to 
establish the capital at Cambridge. There are very few 
capital cities in the world which are not situated on rivers or 
bays less exposed from the sea than Boston ; the anxiety of 
Dudley in this instance is therefore no matter of surprise. 

The New England town and town meeting have for many 
years justly received a great amount of careful consideration 
from students of American history. The town has been 
sometimes designated as the unit in our system of govern- 
ment. Any description of Cambridge which overlooked the 
political organization of the town would therefore be very 
incomplete. 

Power was early in 1634 delegated to a few persons, first 
styled "townsmen," later "selectmen," to transact "the 
whole business of the town." February 3, 1634-35, "At a 
general meeting of the whole town, it was agreed upon by 
a joint consent, that seven men should be chosen to do the 
whole business of the town, and so to continue until the first 
Monday in November next, and until new be chosen in their 
room : so there was then elected and chosen John Haynes, 
Esq., Mr. Symon Bradstreet," and five other persons. Dud- 
ley is not on this list because of more exalted public duties. 
He was a few days later elected governor of the colony. 
There is little reason to doubt that he had an important 
share in the doings of the meeting. At this meeting, 
" It is further ordered, by a joint consent, [that] whatsoever 
these townsmen, thus chosen, shall do, in the compass of 
their time, shall stand in as full force as if the whole town 
1 Wonder-Working Providence, chap, xxviii. 61, Pool's ed. 



1632] DUDLEY DEPUTY GOVERNOR 133 

did the same, either for making of new orders, or altering 
of old ones." 1 

The Court in June, 1632, ordered "that there shall be two 
hundred acres of land set out by marks and bounds, on the 
west side of Charles River, over against the New Town, to 
enjoy to Thomas Dudley Esq., deputy governor, to him and 
his heirs forever." 2 This land was mostly included within a 
great bend of the Charles River, directly south of the head- 
quarters of General Washington on Brattle Street, afterwards 
from 1837 to 1882 the home of the poet Longfellow, who 
has hallowed this turn in the river. 

Dudley was again chosen to the place of deputy governor, 
May 9, 1632, which shows that although he had aroused the 
solicitude of Watertown and of the rest of the colony by 
impaling Cambridge at the public cost, he was nevertheless 
popular, and had public confidence. We do not overlook the 
oft-asserted opinion of persons who seem to think that the 
magistrates combined to retain the offices in their immediate 
possession, and that sometimes it was fortune, more than 
merit or popularity, which secured the leading positions to 
these men. But if the favor of Dudley with the people at 
this period is questioned without reason, very soon after this 
time it was clearly in the ascendant, and he was in the full 
tide of public regard. 

1 Paige's Hist. Camb., 21. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 96. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Rev. Mr. Wilson, minister of Boston, made a visit to 
England in the spring of 1631, and in that connection we 
make the following quotation from Winthrop, i. *5<3, viz. : 
"About ten of the clock Mr. Coddington and Mr. Wilson, 
and divers of the congregation, met at the governor's, and 
there Mr. Wilson, praying and exhorting the congregation 
to love, etc., commended to them the exercise of prophecy in 
his absence, and designed those whom he thought most fit 
for it, viz., the Governor Winthrop, Mr. Dudley and Mr. Now- 
ell the elder." It is evidently the opinion of Mr. Paige that 
there were no meetings " held in Cambridge for religious 
worship" before August 14, 1632. We may understand him 
to mean that there was no regularly established church ser- 
vice. We may easily suppose, with no other authority for it 
than this quotation from Winthrop, that Dudley, and possibly 
all of the settlers of Cambridge, attended service at the First 
Church in Boston during their first year of residence at New 
Town. The chief importance of this passage is its high testi- 
mony to the exemplary and religious character of Dudley. 
He certainly could not have been one of the three most fit 
to preach in Boston unless either he was a very good man, or 
the average moral and religious condition of the inhabitants 
was of so low a grade that good men were wanting, which 
we are not prepared to believe. Because if Winthrop was in 
fact the only really good man in Boston at that time, since 
Wilson ruled in three as the best, and Savage has excluded 
two of these, which leaves Winthrop alone, then there truly 
was a nearer resemblance between Boston and Sodom, which 
had not ten righteous men, than has been heretofore sus- 
pected. We can, with great consideration for Mr. James 



1631] SAVAGE'S STRICTURES UPON DUDLEY 135 

Savage, be convinced that he truly thought that the "in- 
structions of Dudley and Nowell were probably rendered less 
serviceable by their severe tempers than the mild wisdom of 
Winthrop." Who has given evidence of the ungoverned 
rage of Dudley except Winthrop himself, and in matters 
where he himself was a party and a rival ? 

Yet, strange to say, Savage coldly depreciated Dudley. 
We should expect Savage to be partial to Winthrop ; we 
should expect him to proclaim that, " Where MacGregor 
sits, there is the head of the table." But prejudice we should 
not look for in him, and do not care to assume it. Boling- 
broke once said of prejudice, " Some must labor on in a 
maze of error because they have wandered there too long to 
find their way out." 

The character which Savage has attributed to Dudley we 
have clearly shown in foregoing pages is utterly inconsistent 
with his record. He was a man of warm heart and affec- 
tions, tender towards his children, and the poor and suffering. 
When he had judgment against Governor Winthrop in court, 
and might have enforced it against him, he would not do it, 
and freely gave to him the amount. Did that seem penuri- 
ous in him ? When Governor Winthrop adroitly presented 
him with hogs to win his friendship, he tenderly responded 
to the act of friendship, but paid for the hogs. Did that 
seem to be penurious ? If he had been a selfish, sordid man, 
he never would have crossed the ocean, and devoted the 
remnant of life to Massachusetts. 

If it should appear that he spoke courageously and directly 
what he thought, in the cause in hearing, we ought to honor 
him for his honesty. We admire transparent character, up- 
rightness, and courage of convictions, in official station and 
in private life. Heartless courtesy, the robes pretense is 
wearing, and all the panoply of false life and falsehood are 
alike hateful to honest men. 

Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, arrived in 
Boston, February 5, 163 1, and Winthrop says, "At a Court 
holden at Boston (upon information to the governor that 



136 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xm 

they of Salem had called Mr. Williams to the office of 
teacher) a letter was written from the Court to Mr. Endicott 
to this effect : ' That whereas Mr. Williams had refused to 
join with the congregation at Boston, because they would not 
make a public declaration of their repentance for having com- 
munion with the Church of England, while they lived there ; 
and besides had declared his opinion, that the magistrate 
might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other 
offense, as it was a breach of the first table ; therefore they 
marveled they would choose him without advising with the 
Council ; and withal desiring him, that they would forbear to 
proceed till they had conferred about it' " Men who all their 
lives had fellowshiped with excellent religious people of the 
same tenets and creed as their own, who had not repented of 
that earlier connection, were unworthy of him, and repudiated 
by him. It was not enough that they had placed the ocean 
between them and their former associates, or even that possi- 
bly in some instances they silently regarded it a misfortune 
ever to have known their church brethren in Europe, but he 
required a public avowal of repentance for their innocent and 
no doubt very useful church connection. This was a test of 
soul-liberty, not by the magistrate, but by the priest, who is 
quite as dangerous to it. The next teaching by this remark- 
able man is also a little strange, viz. : " That the breach of 
the first table of the Law the magistrate might not punish." 
The first table of the Law is as follows : — 

" i. Thou shalt have no other God before me. 

" 2. Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image. 

" 3. Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain. 

" 4. Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

" 5. Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother." * 

The first four precepts forbid idolatry or atheism, perjury, 
blasphemy, and Sabbath-breaking. 

And we are now so averse to this sort of liberty, and to 
this indifference to religious precepts, that there are well 

1 Exodus xx. 



1631-32] ROGER WILLIAMS AND HIS TEACHINGS 137 

recognized statutes in force for the punishment of most of 
these offenses on our books to-day. So Williams was not 
only in advance of the Puritans, but away ahead of, or behind 
this generation also. We cannot ourselves complain of the 
Puritans. 

Massachusetts has a statute against perjury, and so has 
Rhode Island. Massachusetts has a statute against blas- 
phemy, and so has Rhode Island. Massachusetts has a 
statute against Sabbath-breaking, and so has Rhode Island. 
Blasphemy is indictable at common law. 1 The same author 
says in effect that there is reason to believe that Sabbath- 
breaking is a common law offense. 2 But he says further that 
"the Lord's Day is so fully enforced by statutes, both here 
and in England, that it is of little importance to inquire about 
indictments at common law." The consensus of opinion, 
with two and one half centuries added, is against Williams. 3 

It will always be a matter of curious conjecture what he 
would have done if he had possessed a powerful civil govern- 
ment, and found himself overwhelmed with what he deemed 
idolatrous Catholics. He never had the temptation and 
power, and it is of little value to attempt to guess as to what 
he would have done ; this is rendered of less interest because 
he was quite certain to do the erratic and unexpected thing. 4 

He seems sometimes to enjoy a vision of a good strong 
government. Thus he holds out to his " Impartial Reader," 
whom he takes into his own sacred companionship, heir to 
the same great privileges as himself, as follows : " Yet shalt 
thou see Him, reign with Him, eternally admire Him, and 
enjoy Him, when He shortly comes in flaming fire to burn 
up millions of ignorant and disobedient." 5 

1 Bishop's Crim. Law, ii. § 74. 

2 lb., i. § 499, and note. 

8 The exception of such " cases as did disturb the public peace," 
Winthrop, i. *i62, was unimportant, as idolatry, perjury, blasphemy, 
and Sabbath-breaking are all against the public peace. 

4 Staples's Annals of Providence, 45. 

5 Pub. Narr. Club, i. 318. 



138 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xm 

His contemplated joy, when the Lord shall burn up mil- 
lions of ignorant people, is an indication that he had as little 
sympathy with suffering humanity as the most stubborn 
Puritan in the colony. It would not have been safe to give 
to him extensive power over his fellow-creatures. This may 
be the reason why the people trusted him so little with 
authority in his own colony of Rhode Island, for he was 
governor for only a very brief period, and even this was due 
no doubt to his successful labors, through his friend Harry 
Vane, in securing the charter of that colony. 

His "violent and tumultuous carriage against the charter 
of Massachusetts," which was for half a century their consti- 
tution, the very bulwark and safeguard of their liberties, was 
startling. 

I have here called attention to Roger Williams in Massa- 
chusetts, because Dudley was somewhat active in his banish- 
ment to England, for which Williams himself adroitly substi- 
tuted Rhode Island ; and the important question to be 
considered hereafter in this connection is whether Dudley 
manifested that kindness, forbearance, and Christian courtesy 
towards Williams which his own profession of religion and 
his official position demanded of him, or whether Williams, 
by his conduct, forfeited his right to sojourn in Massachu- 
setts, and rendered himself not only an unworthy but dan- 
gerous inhabitant, to such an extent that Dudley and his 
associates were fully justified in sending him out of their 
jurisdiction. We shall at the proper time and place address 
a few words to this issue. 1 

1 The contrasts, changes, and reversals in circumstances and history 
would have a comical side to them, if it were not for their intense seri- 
ousness in the career of the actors themselves; for example: Rhode 
Island, on September 9, 1897, permitted the mayor and police of Provi- 
dence to banish to Massachusetts, or elsewhere, Emma Goldman, an 
anarchistic declaimer, who sought to relieve her burdened mind of doc- 
trines believed by the authorities to be destructive of existing law and 
order. The teachings of Roger Williams were believed by the ancient 
authorities in Massachusetts to be subversive of law and order. We 
approve heartily of the action of the mayor. 



1631] CRUEL PUNISHMENTS 139 

The following orders of the General Court are interesting : 
The Court, in June, 163 1, established the rule that no person 
shall travel out of the patent without leave from the gov- 
ernor, deputy governor, or some assistant, so that they were 
equally prepared to retain and adhere to persons, or reject 
them, according as they approved of them or otherwise, which 
was a privilege of no little importance at the planting of a 
colony. The sifting of the population at that period, the 
exclusion of tares, and retaining of the pure wheat were alike 
important so long as the manner of doing it was legitimate 
and just. 

On June 14, 163 1, the Court ordered " that Philip Ratcliffe 
shall be whipped, have his ears cut off, be fined forty pounds, 
and banished out of the limits of this jurisdiction, for utter- 
ing malicious and scandalous speeches against the government 
and the church of Salem, &c, as appeareth by a particular 
thereof proved upon oath." 1 

This punishment seems to us, in the light of our methods 
and ideas, both very cr-uel and vindictive. We at once see, 
however, that it is needful to consider public sentiment at 
that period, and the criminal and social conditions which of 
necessity influenced their action. 2 

It is claimed that the common law of England never recog- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 88. 

2 It aids us in a charitable opinion of the punishments inflicted by 
these people, if we note how nearly barbarous punishments have de- 
scended to our own period in history ; neither ought we to overlook the 
cruelty inflicted in modern warfare, which is only a means of dealing 
out punishment to selfish, unyielding, and unreasonable nations. The 
pillory was abolished by 7 William IV. and 1 Vict., c. 23 ; the stocks 
and the burning in the hand for felony, by 19 George III., c. 74. See 
Torture, Encyc. Britannica, 9th ed., 495. There are two quite recent 
cases in which the United States court has decided that whipping as a 
punishment for crime is not an unusual or cruel punishment under the 
Constitution of the United States. (Desty's Fed. Const. Dig., 325.) It 
was only one or two years after the Court of Massachusetts had inflicted 
their cruel edict upon the ears of Ratcliffe that William Prynne lost 
both of his ears by a decree of a British court, on account of publishing 
his book, Histrio-Mastix, against plays. 



140 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xm 

nized torture as legal. The peine forte et dure was not, 
however, far removed, which was inflicted on Giles Corey in 
Salem, Mass., in 1692. And there was a case in England 
in 1726. 1 

Old Testament punishments are set forth in the Encyc. 
Bib. Lit., viii. Freeman says in his history of the Norman 
Conquest of England, vi. 106: "In fact, in an age which had 
few jails and no penal colonies, it may well have seemed that 
the best way to deal with a sinner who was not to be put 
to death was to make him personally incapable of sinning 
again." 

It is important, in this comparison of public sentiment at 
two periods, to note as illustrative of the feeling at that time 
that even Bacon, who was only fifteen years older than 
Thomas Dudley, and died only four years before the great 
emigration to America, " compares experiment in nature to 
torture in civil matters as the best means of eliciting truth." 

We have given more attention to this matter, because there 
are several instances of punishment . in the Massachusetts 
record which cannot fail to shock every one in this era, and 
to seem cruel and unjustifiable. But we have no right to 
take people out of their age and environment and hold them 
accountable to the ideals and sentiments of subsequent times. 
They may always be pointed to for comparison and instruc- 
tion, but with the attendant thought that they came earlier, 
and saw "through a glass darkly," and that we should be 
charitable to them and consider their day and generation, as 
we hope for consideration on our own doings at the hands of 
later and yet more enlightened ages. 

Dudley gives an account in his letter to the Countess of 
Lincoln of Sir Christopher Gardiner, which has considerable 
importance, since Gardiner soon appeared in England as an 
enemy to the colony. Dudley writes as follows, viz. : " Like- 
wise we were lately informed that one Mr. Gardiner, who 
arrived here a month before us, and who had passed here for 
a knight, by the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner, all this 
1 Encyc. Britannica, xxiii. 466. 



1631] SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER 141 

while was no knight, but instead thereof had two wives now 
living in a house at London, 1 one of which came out Septem- 
ber last from Paris in France (where her husband had left 
her years before) to London, where she had heard her hus- 
band had married a second wife, and whom, by inquiring, she 
found out. And they both condoling each other's estate, 
wrote both their letters to the governor, (by Mr. Peirce, who 
had conference with both the women in the presence of Mr. 
Allerton, of Plymouth,) his first wife desiring his return and 
conversion, his second his destruction for his foul abuse, and 
for robbing her of her estate, of a part whereof she sent an 
inventory hither, comprising therein many rich jewels, much 
plate, and costly linen. This man had in his family (and yet 
hath) a gentlewoman, whom he called his kinswoman, and 
whom one of his wives in her letter names Mary Grove, 
affirming her to be a known harlot, whose sending back into 
Old England she also desired, together with her husband. 
Shortly after this intelligence we went to the house of said 
Gardiner (which was seven miles from us), to apprehend 
him and his woman, with a purpose to send them both to 
London, to his wives there. But the man, who having heard 
some rumor from some who came in the ship, that letters 
were come to the governor requiring justice against him, 
was readily prepared for flight, so soon as he should see 
any crossing the river or likely to apprehend him, which 
he accordingly performed. For he dwelling alone, easily dis- 
cerned such who were sent to take him, half a mile before 
they approached his house ; and, with his piece on his neck, 
went his way, as most men think, northwards, hoping to find 
some English there like to himself. But likely enough it is, 
which way soever he went, he will lose himself in the woods, 
and be stopped with some rivers in his passing, notwithstand- 
ing his compass in his pocket, and so with hunger and cold 

1 A writer in the March number of Harper's Monthly, 1883, has dis- 
covered a non sequitur here, and evidently does not think that a knight- 
hood is an equivalent to two wives in London ; he is correct beyond a 
doubt. 



142 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xin 

will perish before we find the place he seeks. His woman 
was brought unto us, and confessed her name, and that her 
mother dwells eight miles from Boirdly, in Salopshire, and 
that Gardiner's father dwells in or near Gloucester, and was 
(as she said) brother to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Win- 
chester, and did disinherit his son for his twenty-six years' 
absence in his travels in France, Italy, Germany, and Tur- 
key ; that he had (as he told her) married a wife in his trav- 
els, from whom he was divorced, and the woman long since 
dead ; that both herself and Gardiner were Catholics till of 
late, but were now Protestants ; that she takes him to be a 
knight, but never heard when he was knighted. The woman 
was impenitent and close, confessing no more than was 
wrested from her by her own contradictions. So we have 
taken order to send her to the two wives in Old England, 
to search her further." : 

Young says, " There seems to be a mystery hanging over 
Gardiner as well as Morton of Merry Mount which it is diffi- 
cult to clear up. They appear to have had no definite object 
in view in coming to New England, but seem actuated by 
a spirit of adventure and an unaccountable love of frolic. 
Morton says that Gardiner ' came into those parts, intending 
discovery.' It is not unlikely, however, that they were both 
in the employment of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who claimed a 
great part of the Bay of Massachusetts, and had been sent 
over as his agents or spies. We know that Gorges cor- 
responded with them both, and by his intercepted letters 
it appears that he had some secret design to recover his 
pretended right, and that he reposed much trust in Gar- 
diner. On his return to England, Gardiner was very active 
in cooperating with Gorges and Morton in their endeavors 
to injure the colonists, and deprive them of their patent. 
These attempts, however, were defeated by the friends of 
the colony in England." 

This man interests us chiefly from the fact that he was 
conspicuous in an attempt to destroy the charter and over- 
1 Young's Chron., 334, 335. 



1631-32] SIR CHRISTOPHER GARDINER 143 

throw the colony in 1632, although he declared himself 
very grateful for the "great courtesy " which he had received 
in Massachusetts in his late visit. There seems to be no 
reasonable doubt that the Puritans were fully justified in 
sending him away, either as a spy, or as a man immoral and 
unworthy. Either reason was a sufficient cause for retiring 
him. There has been some attempt among certain historians 
and essayists to trifle with Dudley's sincere words in giving 
a description of these people, and an undue sympathy for 
the malefactors themselves may be discovered between the 
lines of these writers. This spirit is abroad in the world 
everywhere. The worst felons always find some one to 
send flowers and messages of condolence to their cells. It 
is creditable to our humanity, doubtless, that no souls are 
ever lost in historic annals so utterly as not to find in after 
ages persons to admire them. The unvarnished account in 
Dudley's letter of Gardiner and of Mary Grove, derived 
from investigations both in Europe and America under the 
direction of the government of Massachusetts, continues to 
be the most authentic and trustworthy information extant 
concerning these miserable people. 



CHAPTER XIV 

This mysterious man, Gardiner, proved himself able to do 
the colony considerable injury, as we have noticed, upon his 
return to England. The records of the Privy Council show 
that on the 19th of December, 1632, several petitions were 
" offered by some planters of New England, and a written 
declaration by Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knt., when upon 
long debate of the whole carriage of the plantations of that 
country " the matter " was referred to a committee of twelve 
Lords," to examine how the patents of the said plantations 
have been granted, and how carried." Winthrop relates that 
" We had intelligence from our friends in England, that Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. Mason (upon the instigation 
of Sir Christopher Gardiner, and Morton, and Radcliff) had 
preferred a petition to the lords of the Privy Council against 
us, charging us with many false accusations ; but through 
the Lord's good providence, and the care of our friends in 
England . . . their malicious practice took not effect." The 
delicate situation, and the peril attaching to the colony from 
the violent words of such outspoken separatists as Roger 
Williams, is evident in the following words of Winthrop : 
"The principal matter they had against us, the letters of 
some indiscreet persons among us who had written against 
the church government in England," etc. 1 

The order of the Privy Council, adopted January 19, 1633, 
contained, however, the following, among other favorable 
allusions to the government of Massachusetts, viz.: that 
their Lordships "have thought fit, in the mean time, to 
declare that the appearances were so fair, and the hopes so 
great, that the country would prove both beneficial to this 
1 Winthrop, i. 100. 



1632-33] INTRIGUES AGAINST THE COLONY 145 

kingdom and profitable to the particular adventurers, as that 
the adventurers had good cause to go on cheerfully with 
their undertakings, and rest assured, that if things were car- 
ried as was pretended when the patents were granted, and 
accordingly as by the patents is appointed, his Majesty 
would not only maintain the liberties and privileges hereto- 
fore granted, but supply anything further that might tend 
to the good government of the place and prosperity and com- 
fort of his people there." * 

This investigation, no doubt, had a powerful tendency to 
strengthen and establish more firmly the government in 
America. "The whole carriage of the plantation " had been 
under the fierce examination of the British government, 
instigated and stimulated by the bitterest enemies of the 
colony at home and abroad, who each had a several grievance 
to present to, and to be heard by the Council. " The whole 
carriage" must of necessity have included the much mooted 
question of the transfer of the charter to America, if any one 
then had a doubt about the propriety of that action, which 
is not probable. It was left mostly for debating societies of 
a later period to exercise their wits upon this question, when 
time, the great corrective in human affairs, had healed all 
the defects, and the government, with a new and independ- 
ent life, had gone far on the way of its magnificent destiny. 
Every favorable decision of an important court strengthens 
and confirms a patent to-day, and the same no doubt was 
true then of patents. 

The colonists were so solicitous about the charges against 
them before the Privy Council, that they " sent an answer 
to the petition of Sir Christopher Gardiner, and withal a cer- 
tificate from the old planters 2 concerning the carriage of 
affairs," etc. 3 Winthrop, on the next page of his Journal, 

1 Orders in Council, January 19, 1632-33, and Memorial Hist, of 
Boston, i. 337. 

2 Savage thinks we may conjecture the names to be Blaxton, Jeffries, 
Maverick, Thomson, and perhaps Bursley, Conant, and Oldham. 

3 Winthrop, i. 106. 



146 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xiv 

has given an account of the objections of Dudley to the 
answer to the above petition of Gardiner, which have been 
freely used to depreciate and discredit Dudley, and we think 
it a duty carefully to examine, and if possible to discover, 
the real reasons for Dudley's course in this matter. The 
statement is as follows, viz.: "There is mention made be- 
fore of the answer, which was returned to Sir Christopher 
Gardiner his accusations, to which the governor and all the 
assistants subscribed, only the deputy [Dudley] refused. 
He made three exceptions : i. For that we term the bishops 
reverend bishops ; which was only in repeating the accuser's 
words. 2. For that we professed to believe all the articles 
of the Christian faith, according to the Scriptures and the 
common received tenets of the churches of England. This 
he refused, because we differed from them in matter of 
discipline, and about the meaning of Christ's descension into 
hell ; yet the faithful in England (whom we account the 
churches) expound it as we do, and not of a fatal descent, as 
some of the bishops do. 3. For that we gave the king the 
title of sacred majesty, which is the most proper title of 
princes, being the Lord's anointed, and the word a mere civil 
word, never applied in Scripture to any Divine thing, but 
sanctus used always. 1 Yet by no reasons could he be drawn 
to yield to these things, although they were allowed by divers 
of the ministers and the chief of Plymouth." 

This account has drawn out very strikingly the pity and 
commiseration of Mr. J. A. Doyle 2 for Winthrop, who was 
compromised by such "bigoted" men with such "impene- 
trable minds " as Dudley possessed. He seems to think 
that Dudley was the most benighted Puritan on record 
among the prominent settlers of Massachusetts. 

It does not appear that any one in this period of history is 
qualified to judge respecting this action of Dudley in declin- 
ing to subscribe to the answer, because no one has seen the 
document or knows its substance even. Dudley was as well 

1 Mr. Knox called the queen of Scotland by the same title. 

2 J. A. Doyle's English in America, i. 159. 



1632-33] DUDLEY AND GARDINER'S PETITION 147 

qualified as any man in the government to measure the force 
of apt words, and to determine whether it was consistent 
with his views and convictions that he should subscribe. 
He determined that he ought not to do it, and we are bound 
to respect his judgment and his opinions. As to the first 
objection of Dudley, " For that we term the bishops reverend 
bishops : which was only in repeating the accuser's words." 
Winthrop, and Doyle following in his train, undertake to 
inform us that the repeating of " the accuser's words " was 
harmless, because they were his sentiments, and not of 
necessity those of the subscriber. But Dudley, against the 
magistrates and the wisdom of Plymouth, thought other- 
wise, and was justified in acting on his opinion, which from 
his education was as likely to be correct as that of the 
majority. 

There is a certain dignity and nobility of position in the 
attitude taken by Dudley in this case. He was the last man 
to crouch and cringe and call a bishop reverend, that is to 
say, "entitled to respect mingled with fear and affection," 
when he knew how wicked, cruel, and merciless they as a 
class had been towards the Puritans ; that they " had intro- 
duced to the Parliament a bill making it felony to maintain 
any opinion against the ecclesiastical government ; and had 
succeeded in carrying it through the upper house." There 
is a long list of their doings which made them very abhor- 
rent to New England Puritans, and Thomas Dudley could no 
more apply adjectives of reverence or endearment to them, 
than a Jew could offer such epithets to a Samaritan or a Phil- 
istine. If the words to which he was asked to subscribe 
did not carry that meaning in fact, he felt that they com- 
promised his profession and testimony, and that they would 
be construed to mean that in effect, and therefore he would 
avoid the "very appearance of evil." We know that he was 
deeply anxious to have Gardiner and his associates answered, 
and that if he could have seen his way clear, he would have 
instantly joined his name to the answer. That he hesitated 
shows that we do not know the purport in full of that docu- 



i 4 8 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xiv 

ment nor his reasons for declining to sign it ; we can trust 
his judgment safely in that sort of a thing. 

The next thing that staggers him is, according to Win- 
throp, "that we profess to believe all the articles of the 
Christian faith, according to the Scriptures and the common 
received tenets of the churches of England." This, Win- 
throp says, Dudley refused on the ground that " we differ 
from them in matter of discipline." He was correct; they 
differed as far as Congregationalists and Episcopalians are 
separated in church discipline to-day. Had they not at 
Charlestown, on that 30th day of July, 1630, under the 
" Great Tree," or in the " Great House," put their names to 
the church covenant which separated them from the mother 
church ? Was not this the fundamental beginning of that 
church institution which, alienated from the Church of Eng- 
land, has extended everywhere ? Was not this organization 
of the First Church the model for all the others across the 
continent ? 

And to quote more, " about the meaning of Christ's de- 
scent into hell." Perhaps the best method to apply to the 
consideration of this question is to refer to the examination 
of the Puritan, the Rev. Thomas Settle, minister of Boxford 
in Suffolk, before Archbishop Whitgift and his colleagues in 
commission. " The charge was that Settle denied that the 
soul of the Saviour went to the regions of the damned." He 
answered, " I confess it to be my opinion, that Christ did not 
descend locally into hell, and in this opinion I am supported 
by Calvin, Beza, and other learned men." 1 It was said as 
recently as in 1859, that the doctrine of the "Protestant 
Episcopal Church, as given in the Liturgy and Homilies, 
can only be reconciled with that of the creed and Articles 
by a liberal construction of the creed. And this has been 
done by the American church herself in the rubric prefixed 
to the creed, in which she substitutes the words, ' He went 
into the place of departed spirits,' as of equivalent import. 

1 Hopkins's Puritan, 34, and note. 



1632-33] DUDLEY VINDICATED 149 

The terms in which this substitute is couched are quite 
general and indefinite." 1 

And now comes the political issue in which Dudley, whom 
Winthrop on another occasion had declared to be wise, just, 
and brave, evidently is in advance of them all. " For that 
we gave the king the title of sacred majesty, which is the 
most proper title of princes, being the Lord's anointed." 
The Puritans gave their judgment respecting the "divinity" 
which "doth hedge a king" when, in 1649, they beheaded 
Charles I. America, receiving its impulse from the Puri- 
tans, repudiates all fictions and superstitions respecting 
heavenly anointed kings, and declares that government is 
of the people, by the people, and for the people. "The 
Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the 
supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop." 2 "It [Calvinism] es- 
tablished a religion without a prelate, a government without 
a king." 3 "There was a state without king or nobles; 
there was a church without a bishop ; there was a people 
governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by 
equal laws which it had framed." 4 It might be made to 
appear to minds not " impenetrable " that Dudley was the 
most liberal and progressive man in that great and famous 
group ; that he was nearest to the stature of the true and 
typical American. He would not bow the knee to Baal. 
Possibly he was the noblest Roman of them all. He has 
been called bigoted in this matter. The first meaning of 
bigot is hypocrite, but he was not that ; it is the other peo- 
ple who are subscribing to what they do not believe for the 
noble purpose of being polite. Society is replete with per- 
sons of a craven spirit who will deny their principles, to be 
agreeable. " It is an amiable weakness." Thomas Dudley 
"was made of sterner stuff." As to the other definition of 

1 McClintock and Strong's Cyc. of Bib. Theolog. and Eccl. Lit., iv. 
172. 

2 Junius, Letter XXXV., Dec. 19, 1739. 

3 George Bancroft. 

4 Rufus Choate, Dec. 22, 1843. 



150 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xiv 

bigotry, he may be said to be equally clear. He has been 
charged with intolerance ; that we must consider later. We 
then hope to show that he contended with, and refused to 
tolerate, only religious teachings which were subversive of 
their social, political, and religious undertaking, teachings 
which an organized government and established institutions, 
with seventy-five millions of inhabitants, may easily and 
safely leave to be absorbed, or run their harmless course. 
The early tender plant of government could not endure, but 
must at first be protected from the fury of fanatics. How 
important it was to mankind that the Puritan commonwealth 
should have been what it was, let history relate, and on its 
testimony we will rest secure. 

The authors who have so easily detected the narrowness 
of Dudley in comparison with Winthrop have, if we may be 
permitted to anticipate, failed to note the liberality and en- 
lightenment manifested by Dudley in the instance of the 
setting up of the king's colors, early in the administration 
of Harry Vane. We will let Winthrop tell it : " We replied, 
that for our part we were fully persuaded, that the cross in 
the ensign was idolatrous, and therefore might not set it in 
our ensign ; but because the fort was the king's, and main- 
tained in his name, we thought that his own colors might 
be suspended there. So the governor [Vane] accepted the 
colors of Captain Palmer, and promised they should be set 
up at Castle Island. We conferred over night with Mr. 
Cotton, etc., about the point. The governor [Vane], and 
Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Cotton were of opinion that they 
might be set up at the fort upon this distinction, that it was 
maintained in the king's name. Others [including himself], 
not being so persuaded, answered, that the governor and 
Mr. Dudley, being two of the council, and being persuaded 
of the lawfulness, etc., might use their power to set them 
up. Some others, being not so persuaded, could not join in 
the act, yet would not oppose, as being doubtful," etc. 1 
" The colors were given us by Captain Palmer, and the gov- 
1 Winthrop, i. 188. 



1636] DUDLEY MORE LIBERAL THAN WINTHROP 151 

ernor [Mr. Vane] in requital sent him three beaver skins. 
But the deputy [Winthrop] allowed not of this distinction." 1 

We find the following just and very satisfactory comments 
upon this -dispute in vol. iv. of Sparks's " American Biogra- 
phy," page 116 : " So far as the character of the conflicting 
parties is to be inferred from the transaction just related, it 
is impossible not to recognize a more liberal and enlightened 
spirit in Vane and Dudley than was manifested by the other 
members of the Court." And here the author is caught by 
the cherished ideal of Winthrop, viz. : that he, like the king, 
can do no wrong, and so he invents a theory for his seem- 
ing error, which, if it expresses the facts, derogates much 
more from the character of Winthrop than the first simple 
unexplained action. It is, in effect, a charge that he was 
capable of mean jealousy and treachery against the govern- 
ment, and bad faith towards his associates. To vindicate his 
intelligence, it robs his heart and moral reputation. Away 
with such excuse. We proceed to quote : " The jealousy 
which had for some time actuated the leading men towards 
Vane, [observe that this does not include Dudley among the 
'leading men,'] and their hostility to his principles, gave a 
prevailing direction to their course on this occasion, which 
cannot otherwise be explained. Nothing but the disturbing 
influence of sentiments of this sort could have induced such 
a man as Winthrop to oppose the governor, on the strength 
of a scruple so far-fetched and excessive, as that which led 
him to join with others in refusing to recognize the king's 
authority in his own dominions, on his own fort, by an inno- 
cent ceremony, which was requested for the avowed purpose 
of preserving peace and harmony, and preventing a misun- 
derstanding between the colony and the people of England, 
under circumstances that would certainly have been highly 
injurious, and might have become utterly ruinous to the 
former." 

It is more probable that the popular current was setting 
strongly against the existence of the cross in the ensign and 
1 Winthrop, ii. 344. 



152 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xiv 

against Governor Vane, and that Winthrop clearly saw that 
it was the beginning of the downfall of Vane in the colony, 
and he was too discerning a politician to drift on to rocks 
and reefs exposed to his view at every change of the popular 
tide. Winthrop, like Abraham Lincoln, waited for the opin- 
ions of the people. The Emancipation Proclamation came 
forth when the people were convinced of its expediency 
and necessity. So Winthrop always, with one hand on the 
public pulse, was forecasting the future. He was Vane's 
successor in office. He could risk misunderstandings with 
England three thousand miles away, which could be easily 
condoned by many plausible explanations, in investigations 
long subsequent to the unfortunate event in question. And 
he was not the man to attach himself to a falling star, and 
be dragged down and out of public attention. 

Endicott had, two years before, cut the cross out of the 
ensign, as an emblem of Popery, and the General Court had 
for this rashness, uncharitableness, and indiscretion, and for 
exceeding the limits of his calling on the part of Endicott, 
censured him to be sadly admonished of his offense, and, 
what was doubtless far more unbearable, disenabled him 
from holding office in the commonwealth for and during 
one entire year. The question has been raised, to what 
degree the sensitive conscience of Williams was affected by 
the cross on the king's coin in his own pocket ? 1 

These events disclose the royal and sterling independence 
of Dudley, standing side by side with Harry Vane, the great 
martyr of liberty. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 146 ; Palfrey's Hist. New Eng., 427. This was 
suggested by the theory which once prevailed, that Williams was the 
instigator of this action of Endicott, which is not proven. 



CHAPTER XV 

The acts of the Courts from time to time furnish a lively 
account of the doings and opinions of these people, and give 
a striking illustration of the dominant public opinion and 
social life of the period. 

"It is ordered, that Thomas Dexter shall be set in the 
bilboes, disfranchised and fined 40s. for speaking reproachful 
and seditious words against the government here established, 
and finding fault to divers with the acts of the Court, saying, 
this captious government will bring all to naught, adding 
that the best of them was but an attorney," etc. x 

Free speech and the sacred privilege of fault-finding were 
restrained until the infant colony had strength and independ- 
ence enough to be beyond their influence. Such a rule now, 
well enforced, would nearly or quite deprive orators and the 
public press of their lucrative occupations. 

The relative importance of the six towns in 1632 appears 
in the rate of taxation. Boston is assessed £5, Charlestown 
£4, Roxbury £6, Watertown £6, New Town £6, Medford 
£,1, for the maintenance of Captain Underhill and Captain 
Patrick for half a year ; they were then the military com- 
manders of the colony. " The price of corn, formerly re- 
strained to six shillings the bushel, is now set at liberty 
to be sold as men can agree." The price for breach of pro- 
mise to marry was more moderate then than now. " It is 
ordered, that Joyce Bradwick shall give unto Alexander 
Beck the sum of twelve shillings for promising him marriage 
without her friends' consent, and now refusing to perform 
the same." . . . "John Winthrop was chosen governor, and 
Thomas Dudley, deputy governor, at a General Court held at 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 103. 



154 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xv 

Boston, May 29, 1633, manifested by a general erection of 
hands." 1 

The prohibitory law was introduced early. " It is ordered, 
that no person shall sell either wine or strong water without 
leave of the governor, or deputy governor. This order to 
take place a fortnight hence, and after the constable of the 
same plantation hath published the same, and that no man 
shall sell, or (being in a course of trading) give any strong 
water to any Indian." 2 

They had something which seems like involuntary bank- 
ruptcy, for, " It is ordered that the goods of Thomas Walford 
shall be sequestered and remain in the hands of Anchient 
Gennison, to satisfy the debts he owes in the Bay to several 
persons." 3 

The proclamation for a general thanksgiving, issued at a 
Court holden at Boston, October 1, 1633, is pathetic: "In 
regard of the many and extraordinary mercies which the 
Lord hath been pleased to vouchsafe of late to this planta- 
tion, viz., a plentiful harvest, ships safely arrived with persons 
of special use and quality, etc., it is ordered, that Wednesday, 
the 1 6th day of this present month, shall be kept as a day of 
public thanksgiving through the several plantations. And 
whereas it is found by common experience that the keeping 
of lectures at the ordinary hours now observed in the fore- 
noon to be divers ways prejudicial to the common good, both 
in the loss of a whole day and bringing other charges and 
troubles to the place where the lecture is kept, it is therefore 
ordered, that hereafter no lecture shall begin before one 
o'clock in the afternoon." 4 

" It is ordered, that there shall be ^400 collected out of 
the several plantations to defray public charges, viz. — Bos- 
ton ^48, Roxbury £48, New Town £48, Watertown £48, 
Charlestown ^48, Dorchester ;£8o, Saugus £36, Salem 
^28, Winetsemet £8, Medford £12, Aggawam £8, Sum 
total = £4 1 2. " 5 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 103, 104. 2 lb., i. 106. 3 lb., i. 107. 
4 lb., i. 109. 5 lb., i. no. 



1632-33] FORTIFICATION OF FORT HILL, BOSTON 155 

This is of importance, since it shows the relative standing 
of the eleven towns in October, 1633. We have already 
given considerable attention to the contest between Win- 
throp and Dudley over the question whether Cambridge or 
Boston should be the capital of the colony. It is quite evi- 
dent that the struggle continued longer, and was deeper and 
more influential in the lives of these men and their relations 
to each other than a mere superficial research might lead 
one to suspect. 

We have also dwelt upon the matter of Dudley's palisade 
around Cambridge, and upon the fact that the House of 
Representatives * is claimed to have indirectly resulted from 
the taxation of Watertown for its share of the expense of 
the work. It seems that Winthrop began the fortification on 
Fort Hill, in Boston, at the same time nearly, that is to say, 
two months after this tax was assessed in February, 1632. 
Winthrop says, 2 " The fortification upon the Corn Hill [after- 
wards called Fort Hill, begun May 24, 1632], that Charles- 
town men came and wrought upon it the 25th of May. 
Roxbury the next, and Dorchester the next." It is to be 
observed that New Town does not appear here, and at first 
had nothing to do with it. August 3, 1632, Dudley is said 
by Winthrop to have asked him by what authority he had 
moved certain ordnance, and erected a fort at Boston, and 
that Winthrop replied to this " that the ordnance lying upon 
the beach in danger of spoiling, and having often complained 
of it in the Court, and nothing done, with the help of divers 
of the assistants, they were mounted upon their carriages, 
removed where they might be of some use : and for the fort, 
it had been agreed, above a year before, that it should be 
erected there : and all this was done without any penny 
charge to the public." Dr. Shurtleff, in his "Topographi- 
cal and Historical Description of Boston," page 164, says : 

1 The oldest representative body in America excepting that of Vir- 
ginia, which first met June 19, 1619. Plymouth had none until 1639. 
(Hutchinson, ii. 46.) 

2 Winthrop, i. *tj. 



156 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xv 

" These extracts clearly show that Governor Winthrop origi- 
nated the project of erecting the fortifications upon the hill, 
and actually accomplished the undertaking, in which he was 
opposed by Dudley, the deputy governor." And it helps to 
disclose a contest between them in these matters that Win- 
throp charges back upon Dudley, on the 3d day of August, 
as follows : " But the deputy had taken more upon him, in 
that, without order of Court, he had empaled, at New Town, 
above one thousand acres, and had assigned lands to some 
there." Winthrop's argument seems to be, I am no worse 
than you are, which has the merit at least of equality. Win- 
throp and the Boston influence were no doubt at work to fix 
the permanent capital in that town, and to that end, and for 
their own proper security, they were very solicitous about the 
fortifications of the harbor. Hence it was ordered " by the 
General Court, May 29, 1633," that the "fort at Boston shall 
be finished with what convenient speed may be, at the public 
charge." 1 And the Court, in September of that year, en- 
forced the above order as follows : " It is ordered, (according 
to a former order at the General Court) that every hand (ex- 
cept magistrates and ministers) shall afford their help to the 
finishing of the fort at Boston, till it be ended." 2 New Town 
did not respond to this order. It is charged in Winthrop's 
Journal that Dudley was the man who resisted it. He was 
no doubt the most influential citizen of New Town at that 
time, and was opposed to spending money or labor on the 
fortifications of Boston, not because he was selfish or morose, 
but because the work did not commend itself to his better 
judgment as of sufficient importance. He still believed that 
New Town would be the capital, and that fosses and palisades 
were the best defense against Indians, bears, and wolves ; 
that they were not in condition yet to build forts to resist 
the artillery of Europe. But it would no doubt be a mistake 
to assume that Dudley was alone in this opinion. There is 
some reason to believe that this struggle between Boston 
and New Town was participated in by Governor Haynes as 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 105. 2 lb., i. 108. 



1632-33] FORT ON FORT HILL, BOSTON 157 

well, and Governor Ludlow, and that it may have contributed 
something to the antagonism between Cotton and Hooker, 
which is thought to have been the reason why the latter left 
Massachusetts and settled in Connecticut. Whether there 
is any connection or not between the two events, the de- 
parture came at that exact time when Boston triumphed over 
Cambridge and the capital went there forever. We are aware 
that a few Courts were held in Cambridge later, but only in 
time of violent public disturbance. The battle was won for 
Boston, and Winthrop, Cotton, and Vane were victorious over 
Dudley, Haynes, and Hooker. Was this rivalry between 
these towns, and the personal animosity created thereby, 
the cause ? It may at least have been a potent influence ; 
perhaps it will never be known to what extent they played 
a part in those important movements. 

But to return to the record a little further : " It is ordered, 
that when all the plantations in the Bay hath done two 
days' work apiece at the fort, there shall order go forth to 
Salem, Aggawam, and Saugus, to send in their money for 
three days' work towards it for every man, except magis- 
trates and ministers." This action was at the Court in No- 
vember of the same year, and requires Winthrop's explana- 
tion 1 to make it clear how high the feeling ran between the 
towns and between the worthies. It seems expedient to 
mention in this connection that this Court, and one other, 
viz., June 2, 1640, are the only two recorded Courts of either 
kind that Dudley did not attend until the very end of his 
life. As we have already mentioned, this indicates his 
interest, his faithfulness, and his important share in all the 
doings of that noble bench of magistrates during twenty- 
three years, which bench in impelling and directing power 
has hardly been exceeded in importance by any other body 
of men of equal numbers and station in life in the world's 
history. Why did not Dudley attend this particular Court ? 
We do not know ; he may have been ill ; but we suspect that 
he felt that he was in the minority and could do no good, 
1 Winthrop, i. *ii7. 



158 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xv 

and might make himself and others unhappy ; and like a 
prudent man that he was, he heeded the injunction of Shak- 
spere, " Beware of entrance to a quarrel." It might have 
been better if he had considered this wise suggestion earlier. 
We are informed by Winthrop " that those of New Town 
being warned, the deputy [Mr. Dudley] would not suffer 
them to come." The only account of this matter is from 
Winthrop. It seems a little strange that Dudley could thus 
resist the order of Court, and the Court take no notice of it. 
There is positively no account of it in the records of the 
colony. It seems also doubtful whether Salem and Saugus, 
as represented, were the real reason. If it was as Winthrop 
says, and in the main no doubt it was, Dudley's objection 
lay deeper and went against the whole scheme of fortifica- 
tion at Fort Hill. Winthrop says further, " The Court 
being two days after, ordered, that New Town should do 
their work as others had done." W T hich we understand to 
be included in the general order of November 5, above 
quoted. We hear nothing more about the fortification of 
Boston ; the Boston party has carried the day and Dudley 
is reconciled, but not convinced, after all, of the expediency 
of the action. For so soon as he is governor, in 1634, the 
capital is instantly removed to Cambridge, and remains there 
during his administration and that of Governor Haynes, his 
friend and successor in office, also a citizen of Cambridge. 
Then the Boston party comes into the ascendency in the 
person of Harry Vane. The Cambridge party, in 1635, the 
year before, had probably arrived at a profound convin ce- 
ment that the tide of public sentiment had permanently set 
in favor of Boston, for they began that year to leave Cam- 
bridge. They considered Ipswich and Connecticut, both 
then in Massachusetts, as places of residence. Governor 
Haynes and Hooker went to Connecticut. Dudley was 
unwilling to go so far from the seat of government, and there- 
fore went with his family and son-in-law, Governor Simon 
Bradstreet, and others, to Ipswich. There he remained 
three or four years, until he was again candidate for gov- 



1633-34] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY 159 

ernor, when he removed to Roxbury, to be nearer to the seat 
of government, and also to be under the preaching or min- 
istry of his friend, John Eliot, the Indian missionary. Here 
he remained immovable all the rest of his life. Winthrop 
and Dudley, after the supremacy of Boston was assured, had 
no more troubles which have descended to us. They were 
no doubt welded together in their contests with Roger Wil- 
liams and with Antinomians, and with the discontented and 
ever-growing and surging forces of democracy and fanati- 
cism, which must be bridled and curbed and kept in place, 
until they could be educated and trusted to go alone without 
the leading strings of babyhood. Their families intermar- 
ried, and most of the important matters mentioned, which 
awakened their solicitude and tried their courage, wisdom, 
and patience, occurred while Dudley resided at Ipswich, from 
1635 to 1639. 

It would be difficult to overestimate the great stability 
and force of character which these two men contributed to 
this commonwealth, and thence directly to the common- 
wealth of England. Allow all honor to John Cotton and 
the ministers in general, as an advisory force and guide to 
the meaning of the Scriptures, and even of the law, and 
yet the executive wisdom was in the magistrates, to discern 
the right way and to walk, and direct others to walk, therein 
with fidelity, and a courage which could withstand the 
anointed ministers if reason dictated that course, and tell 
them to keep their allotted places and reign in their own 
bailiwick. There remained, as early as 1636, only three of 
that Court of Assistants which met on board the Arbella, 
March 23, 1629, the last Court in England which elected 
Dudley deputy governor. These were Winthrop, Dudley, and 
his son-in-law, Bradstreet, who was the last governor under 
the first charter in 1679, and was young and of less weight 
until the ancient worthies had disappeared. Winthrop went 
to his final rest in 1649, and Dudley survived him four years, 
and was governor again in 1650. But how these two men 
tower in importance above all the others in the colony ! 



160 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xv 

They were so constantly in office, and so united and com- 
bined in the service of the commonwealth, that their labors 
and achievements are absolutely inseparable. Then let no 
American citizen willingly and voluntarily " abate the tithe 
of a hair from the just character and just fame " of either 
illustrious magistrate. " These were honored in their gen- 
eration and were the glory of their times." 1 

The election on May 14, 1634, was an exceedingly im- 
portant one. Dudley up to this time had lived and labored 
always under the shadow of Winthrop. He had been con- 
stantly second, and Winthrop first. He had been only the 
deputy heretofore, but now he was elevated by the suffrages 
of the people above Winthrop, in the governorship. This 
indorsement by the people was of special importance to him, 
because it was a vindication of himself in his controversy 
with Winthrop. He was jealous of Winthrop, it is asserted, 
and wanted his high place for himself. This view is unjust 
to Dudley. He was very much disturbed at the unwar- 
ranted assumption of power and authority on the part of 
Winthrop, as appears in his charges against him. 2 It was 
not for himself that he contended ; it was for the cause of 
causes, it was for the state, that he was anxious. 

" Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus. . . . 
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great ? " 3 

Thus thought the people of Winthrop at this election, and 
Dudley was at their head and was their choice for governor, 
and their verdict then was a conclusive judgment in favor of 
Dudley and against Winthrop, running back over the con- 
troversies of 1632 and 1633 down to this period. It is to be 
said that the political lines were not the same as in former 
years, yet it is true that the supposed usurpations of Win- 
throp were at the foundation of all controversies, early and 
late. The Rev. Mr. Cotton was an earnest supporter of 

1 Son of Syrach. See Rom. xii. 7, 8. 2 Winthrop, i. *83-*86. 

8 Julius Caesar, act 1, scene 2. 



1 634] DUDLEY GOVERNOR 161 

Winthrop. The Rev. Mr. Hooker, who did not cherish 
Cotton with great warmth, was no doubt on the side of Dud- 
ley. Both Hooker and Haynes lived at Cambridge, as we 
have noted, with Dudley, and were no doubt his friends and 
supporters. And this same spirit between the same persons 
continued until Hooker retired to Connecticut in 1636, and 
Dudley to Ipswich in 1635. The Hutchinson and Williams 
struggles in 1636 united the factions against their common 
enemies ; and we hear nothing more about unpleasantness 
and jealousies between Winthrop and Dudley. It is well to 
observe that Dudley believed with all his heart in rotation 
in office. They had escaped from a land of hereditary and 
one-man power, and had espoused the government by the 
whole church-going people, who were believed to contain the 
virtue and intelligence of the community, and he was anxious 
that they might not drift back into their old ways of office 
for life, which seemed to be the idea of Cotton and also of 
Winthrop. It was this, it may be safely believed, which 
kept Dudley out of the office of governor, with the exception 
that he returned about every five years. He was governor 
in 1634, 1640, 1645, 1650, and these periods of absence from 
office so regular, coupled with his firm adherence to the doc- 
trine of rotation in office, accounts fully for his continued 
action during his whole life in Massachusetts. 

" This election was held in the old First Meeting House, 
and the courteous, but defeated Winthrop, entertained at his 
own house Dudley and the assistants, as he usually had 
done after his own election in former years, during the three 
days of the session." Nothing has in it greater power of 
reconciliation than an hospitable reception and a good dinner. 
"If thine enemy hunger feed him." Winthrop's residence 
was on Washington Street, 1 a little north of the Old South 
Church, and here the worthy magistrates feasted May 14, 
15, and 16, 1634, and never more told the world at large 
their quarrels, if they had them. 

1 In 1631 he brought his house from Cambridge, and placed it by the 
Old South. (Old Landmarks of Boston, 225.) 



162 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xv 

The Rev. Mr. Cotton, "at the General Court, preached 
and delivered this doctrine, that a magistrate ought not to be 
turned into the condition of a private man without just cause, 
and to be publicly convict, no more than the magistrates may 
not turn a private man out of his freehold, etc., without like 
public trial, etc. This falling in question in the Court, and 
the opinion of the rest of the ministers being asked, it was 
referred to further consideration." 1 It does not appear that 
Winthrop was displeased with Cotton's single-man govern- 
ment doctrine. Cotton was himself only made a freeman at 
this Court, and was so recently from the autocratic ideas of 
England, and so in fellowship with Winthrop, his administra- 
tion and fortunes, that he soon discovered himself to be quite 
on the unpopular side in the politics of the period, without 
even the support of the ministers. 

The freemen were evidently very much agitated over the 
doings of Governor Winthrop and the Court of Assistants, 
and proposed to examine at once into their own charter rights, 
and having found them, to maintain them at any cost. When 
the notice was issued for the great election at the May 
meeting of the General Court, they were on the alert. Two 
of them from each town met and "desired a sight of the pat- 
ent," in April previous to the session of the General Court, 
" and conceiving thereby that all their laws should be made 
at the General Court, repaired to the governor [Winthrop] 
to advise with him about it, and about the abrogating of some 
orders formerly made, as for the killing of swine in corn," 
etc. Swine from time to time became the proximate cause 
of some very important revolutions in the interests of liberty 
in the colony. The governor said to this committee of towns 
that " for the present they were not furnished with a suffi- 
cient number of men qualified for such a business, neither 
could the commonwealth bear the loss of time of so many as 
must intend it." He very adroitly suggested that they might 
do divers and sundry things, only they must not make new 
laws. 2 Winthrop's treatment of this committee, in this very 
1 Winthrop, i. *I32. 2 lb., i. *I28. 



1633-34] DUDLEY CALLS WINTHROP TO ACCOUNT 163 

important inquiry and critical juncture of political affairs, 
reveals the imperious and lordly assumption he was capable 
of, until the discipline of dealing with a free people taught 
him to be more considerate. Here we see him as he was, 
and can well understand the character that Dudley was united 
with for years. And we can well believe that his patience 
was tried to a hair's breadth, when Winthrop, a man of less 
years and experience in life, took matters into his own hands, 
and took no trouble to say, " By your leave, I do this and 
that." Winthrop had to be called to account, and taught a 
vigorous lesson, beginning with the golden rule, and then 
that the people were thenceforth and forever to be sovereign 
in America. It is remarkable that Winthrop, who charges 
Dudley with jealousy of him, nowhere seems to suggest that 
Dudley had stirred the freemen to the point of resistance to 
his continuance in office. We do not believe that Dudley 
ever sought to displace Winthrop. We know he was desir- 
ous that he should consult the government more in the ad- 
ministration. We also know that he approved of rotation in 
office. It is certainly creditable to Dudley that Winthrop 
found no occasion to say of him that his own temporary over- 
throw was due in any manner to the intrigue of himself. 
Nor does he even insinuate that Dudley had cultivated the 
dear people to obtain votes which would elevate himself to 
the governorship in his place. It is evident that Dudley, by 
his very mental structure, was incapable of that service to 
himself. 



LHAKl'KR XVT 

The thoroughness with which this Court did its work is 
simply marvelous, and its effect no man can estimate. Sav- 
age says, " No country on earth can afford the perfect his- 
tory of any event more interesting to its own inhabitants 
than that which is here related." 1 The first thing done in 
the General Court, as the record stands, was a change of the 
oath of freemen, and also a retroactive provision changing 
the obligation of the former oath upon the freemen of earlier 
date. The latter part of this oath was a healthful and sug- 
gestive preparation for the resistance they were about to 
undertake in politics against the present firmly seated gov- 
ernment, including possibly the ministers and magistrates. 
It is impossible to state how the party division ran at this 
time. We know that the majority were bent on reducing 
Governor Winthrop. The following is a part of the oath, 
which has the most important bearing on the situation, 
viz. : " Moreover, I do solemnly bind myself in the sight of 
God, that when I shall be called to give my voice touching 
any such matter of this state wherein freemen are to deal, 
I will give my vote and suffrage, as I shall judge in mine 
own conscience may best conduce and tend to the public 
weal of the body, without respect of persons, or favor of any 
man. So help me God, in the Lord Jesus Christ." 2 

This kind of oath would be a useful reminder to the 
thoughtless in our present elections. It is well adapted also 
to the integrity and independence of the candidate who re- 
ceived a majority of the votes at the election. For Winthrop 
said of Dudley in 1641, "Who being a very wise and just 

1 Winthrop, i. *I2Q, note 1. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, 117. 



1634] BALLOT FIRST USED 165 

man and one that would not be trodden under foot of any 
man." When Winthrop said that, he knew Dudley by a liv- 
ing experience, close and intimate, in temptation, under fiery 
trials of every sort ; and it is exceedingly strong testimony 
from the lips of a rival. Dudley would hardly succeed as 
a politician in some known localities to-day with such char- 
acteristics. 

There was, at this election, a determined purpose to bring 
out the independent vote, and to preserve its independency 
until the issue was settled whether there should be a change 
in the government. The ballot, or voting "by papers," was 
used, the secret ballot, that permitted each freeman to make 
his choice without exposure to the scrutiny of politicians or 
ministers. It has been thought that this use of the ballot 
was a return after fifteen hundred years to the Roman sys- 
tem in the time of Trajan. But it is now shown to have 
come to America by the way of the Netherlands. 1 

It is also said that the ballot had a prior service in Salem, 
Mass., in church elections. But the important question is 
whether, in all the history of representative government, the 
election of Dudley was not the first wherein the free people 
cast their vote by ballot direct for the chief magistrate. This 
would have far greater historic importance than the use of 
the ballot by churches, by corporations, or by deliberative 
and legislative bodies. It would be the introduction of a 
system which is not yet in use in England except as to re- 
presentatives, and not even in that particular instance until 
1872. It does not yet exist in all of the American States. 
The Congress of the United States has provided that all 
votes for representatives in Congress shall be by written or 
printed ballots. 2 The citizen who votes directly for governor 
or representatives acts for himself, not by delegative author- 
ity, and has a right to keep to himself, and guard his private 
independent choice. It is no doubt vastly for the public 

1 Douglas Campbell's Puritan in Holland, England, and America, ii. 
430-440. 

2 Revised Statutes of the U. S., p. 5, § 27. 



166 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvi 

good that he be so protected as to exercise this privilege 
freely, but the representative in legislature or in Congress is 
in another relation ; he has constituents. He votes for them, 
and they have a reasonable and just right to know by a viva 
voce vote exactly how he voted on all questions. 

It does not yet appear that, with these proper limitations, 
the vote for Dudley was not original in form and unique in 
all history. Hooker was doubtless in favor of Dudley in this 
election. He belonged to the Cambridge, and not to the 
Boston, faction. He did not in general side with Cotton, 
who was an earnest Winthrop man. We have observed his 
association with Dudley from his first arrival in the colony. 
He had lived three years in Holland, and we may reasonably 
suppose that he had there learned something of the use of the 
ballot. At any rate, he placed it permanently in the famous 
constitution of Connecticut, five years subsequent to this 
election. Did he have a hand in guiding the political for- 
tunes of Dudley on that eventful 14th day of May, 1634? 
Or did he learn then the value of the ballot in Massachusetts, 
and later enrich that constitution, as he did in many other 
particulars, through his experience and observation in the 
older commonwealth ? 1 

It is pleasant and very interesting to read Hubbard's 
excuse for and thoughtful explanation of Winthrop's failure 
of reelection: "The freemen, that they might not always 
burden one person with the yoke of the government, nor 
suffer their love to overflow in one family, turned their re- 
spects into another channel." 2 He also wrote kind and ap- 
preciative words of Dudley's promotion to the gubernatorial 
office. Savage, in his note, 3 asks what induced this concert 
of action among the towns, by which their delegates pro- 
ceeded to interrogate Winthrop, and to examine the charter, 
to learn their rights and powers ? He himself answers this 
question by the suggestion that the assistants had become 

1 Douglas Campbell's Puritan in Holland, England, and America, ii. 

439- 

2 Hist, and Antiq. of Boston, 169. 3 Winthrop, i. *I29. 



1634] POLITICAL MISFORTUNE OF WINTHROP 167 

weary of power, and devised this method of shifting a portion, 
at least, of the responsibility upon the deputies, which is quite 
a departure from the theory expressed by Hubbard. It ap- 
pears to us that the theory of Savage, so far as Winthrop is 
concerned, is improbable, if not impossible. He had clearly 
shown, at his interview with the committee a month before, 
that he did not consider them competent to take the respon- 
sibility either to make laws or to execute them. He was 
evidently desirous of retaining all the position and power he 
had attained to so far, and of keeping the freemen in their 
proper place, which he considered subordinate. This had 
been his constant method, manifested in his words and in his 
actions. 

The more reasonable view of his political reverse is that 
certain thoughtful men in the colony, including possibly 
Hooker and Nathaniel Ward, were quietly agitating certain 
changes and reforms in the arbitrary government by the 
Court of Assistants ; that, influenced by them, these dele- 
gates put a few questions kindly to Governor Winthrop, and 
learned that he had no sympathy with them, and that being 
already convinced by the learned among them that the assist- 
ants were determined to govern, so long as they were per- 
mitted to do so, the delegates began, under the inspiration of 
some one to us unknown, who had something of the spirit 
of 1776, seriously to ponder the great thought that "eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty." 

The Court of Assistants had ordered, ten months before 
this date, " that it shall be lawful for any man to kill any 
swine that comes into his corn." 1 Six months before, the 
same Court ordered : " Further, it is agreed that no man 
shall give his swine any corn but such as, being viewed by 
two or three neighbors, shall be judged unfit for man's 
meat. . . . Also, that every plantation shall agree how 
many swine every person may keep, winter and summer, 
about the plantation." 

When the honorable deputies appeared before Governor 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 106. 



l68 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvi 

Winthrop for information and sympathy, he says that they 
wished to advise with him about " the abrogating of some 
orders formerly made, as for killing of swine in corn," etc. 
This Court organized May 14, 1634, and then settled some 
constitutional questions, and began to do the ordinary busi- 
ness of the Court by passing the following act : " All former 
orders concerning swine are repealed ; and it is agreed that 
every town shall have liberty to make such orders about 
swine as they shall judge best for themselves." The dele- 
gates had approached Governor Winthrop and presented 
their grievances, and he in turn alluded to some matters 
which he considered no doubt the more important, but he 
either disregarded or overlooked the question respecting 
swine, and gave them no satisfaction. We do not seek to 
magnify this or any other matter beyond its due and relative 
importance. It is, however, evident that these citizens from 
a land of severe laws and oppressive government were be- 
ginning to feel the impulses of liberty in a new social life, 
and the democratic spirit awakened in them was constantly 
stimulating them to a close inspection of the laws of govern- 
ment under which they were living. They were searching, 
as we are to-day, for the unattained, the ideal theory and 
practice of government, the royal highway and method of 
advance, to which was then, as now and always will be, by 
agitation. 

Political agitation had been invoked in the question of 
the conflict between Cambridge and Boston, respecting the 
choice of one of them as the capital town, and also as an 
incidental matter the fortifications of Boston harbor. Sev- 
eral of these contests had set the people in battle array to 
contend for their liberties, and thereupon aroused a spirit 
which never slumbers in America, but has appeared in every 
struggle and period in our annals. 

Winthrop, in the judgment of the majority of the free- 
men, as we think, was growing into the conviction that he 
was to be governor at least during good behavior, and that 
he and his immediate associates would for a long time be 



1634] REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 169 

tolerated in the high places of power in the colony ; that the 
true course of the government was to curb the " vaulting 
ambition " of the people, and keep them in the subordinate 
ranks of obedient subjects, neither law-makers nor judges 
of the laws created by their superiors. 

Dudley was raised to the chief magistracy upon the popu- 
lar tide which created a representative government outside 
of the charter, ultra vires ; not indeed the first, but the sec- 
ond representative body in America, — not second, however, 
in importance in the history of the United States. Ought 
the colony properly to have applied to England for a change 
of charter enabling them to make this extension in their 
government ? 1 

One thing is evident : that the government of the people 
made a great and permanent advance, and that in this move- 
ment Dudley was at the front, while the swine question was 
surely quite fundamental in the agitation among the peo- 
ple which developed this great political advance. Dudley 
had himself first called public attention to the complacent, 
self-assured methods of Winthrop's administration, no doubt 
because he was by his prominent position best prepared for 
this service ; but at this election the freemen themselves 
were fully awake to the growing importance of rotation in 
office in a free government. Dudley therefore was, by his 
election upon this issue, at this moment vindicated respect- 
ing his arraignment earlier of the one-man government of 
Winthrop, and he had also the proud distinction of being 
borne into office in this progressive movement of the free- 
men towards that democratic freedom which is the noblest 
characteristic in our government to-day. 

We can never know whether the twenty-four freemen 
enrolled at that General Court, May 14, 1634, acted as and 
for the whole body of freemen in the election of Mr. Dudley, 
the others being fully notified, but having failed to appear, 
or whether there were others present not named in the 
record. We know that the twenty-four names were the 
1 Grahame's Hist. U. S., i. 229. 



170 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvi 

representative body when the Court was finally organized. 
We also know that the governor was not to be elected by 
the representatives, but by the whole Court, governor, deputy 
governor, assistants ; and the election would proceed now, 
except that it would be in town meeting, by the freemen or 
such portion thereof as might come after due and lawful 
notice to all. 1 It is ordered, " that there shall be four Gen- 
eral Courts, held yearly, to be summoned by the governor, 
for the time being, and not to be dissolved without the con- 
sent of the major part of the Court." They did not intend 
to leave any prerogative with the executive to prorogue or 
dissolve Parliament at its pleasure. The people were sov- 
ereign, and intended to continue to be. They now began to 
reserve in themselves all powers, as they have since done, 
not specifically granted, and to extend even the contem- 
plated methods of the charter in the interests of liberty and 
political progress. For without special authority or direc- 
tion under the charter, though not in violence to it, " It was 
further ordered, that it shall be lawful for the freemen of 
every plantation to choose two or three of each town before 
every General Court, to confer and prepare such public busi- 
ness as by them shall be thought fit to consider of at the next 
General Court. 2 And that such persons shall be hereafter 
so deputed by the freemen of the several plantations, to deal 
in their behalf, in the public affairs of the commonwealth, 
shall have the full power and voices of all the said freemen, 
derived to them for the making and establishing of laws, 
granting of lands, etc., and to deal in all other affairs of the 
commonwealth wherein the freemen have to do, the matter 
of election of magistrates and other officers only excepted, 
wherein every freeman is to give his own voice." 3 This is 
very fundamental, and seems to contain the germ of the 
present organized government of Massachusetts, and of 
the other States as well, and indeed of the United States. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 118. 

2 This looks like a sort of caucus, for conference at least. 

3 Mass. Col. Rec, i. n8. 



1634] DANGERS OF UNEDUCATED DEMOCRACY 171 

The people, having thus established the manner of election 
of their governor and legislative officers, proceed in the full 
exercise of their assumed powers of government to secure 
to themselves and to their posterity " the free liberties of a 
freeborn people of England." Although they do not at 
this one effort secure the whole of the most celebrated 
thirty-ninth of Magna Charta, or trial by jury in all its provi- 
sions, they nevertheless make a very important beginning in 
that direction. " It was further ordered that the constable 
of every plantation shall, upon process received from the 
secretary, give timely notice to the freemen of the plantation 
where he dwells, to send so many of their said members as 
the process shall direct, to attend upon public service ; and 
it is agreed, that no trial shall pass upon any, for life or 
banishment, but by a jury so summoned, or by the General 
Court." * We cannot fail to note that this is a continuation 
of the struggle of the people towards liberty by an instinct 
of freedom. The intrinsic motive in the minds of these 
people, and of all other people who seek for trial by jury, is 
its relations to the rights of the people. Judges in the 
past, at least, were appointed by sovereigns, and were often 
their servants against the interests of the people ; but a 
jury of one's peers was a cherished bulwark of liberty, and 
protection from the abuse of power and prerogative in high 
places. 

Forebodings of calamities arising from ungovernable demo- 
cracy and a population which was not trusted with power, 
but which was being constantly increased by the arrival of 
every ship from Europe, were influencing Winthrop and the 
other assistants, and made them hesitate before they recog- 
nized the sovereignty of the masses, and transferred the 
most important powers to untutored citizens. Nevertheless, 
that transfer, however slowly evolved, was the meaning in 
history of the great emigration to America, and this three 
days' session of the General Court was the very dawn of the 
new era, and notice was here served by the people, that 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 118. 



i 7 2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvi 

they proposed to enter at once upon their inheritance from 
which they had been ousted since time immemorial. We 
ought most highly to appreciate the good fortune of Dudley 
in being elevated to the first place in the commonwealth 
and in the gift of the people at this period. We have not 
always found writers of history regarding him as a student 
of law and of English liberty, the associate in England with 
the greatest and most advanced spirits of the age, and such 
historians would never observe how gladly he welcomed the 
progress of political freedom, and gave to it his sympathy 
and warm approval. Dudley, Nathaniel Ward, and Thomas 
Hooker were kindred spirits of the true American type, and 
the colony derived from them more, perhaps, than history 
has distinctly chronicled. Winthrop, on the other hand, has 
received his share of honor for all that was then achieved, 
because he left a diary, in which events take a shade and 
color from his own objective point of view, and because his 
illustrious descendants have honorably guarded his cherished 
memory. 



CHAPTER XVII 

An important matter absorbed the attention of the gov- 
ernment. The Plymouth Colony claimed under their grant 
a monopoly of the Indian traffic on the Kennebec River, and 
one John Hocking, of Piscataqua, agent for Lords Say and 
Brooke, undertook, in May, 1634, to intercept the canoes 
which came down the river and to divert the trade to him- 
self. A dispute at once arose, which resulted in the death 
of Hocking, and also of a Plymouth man by the name of 
Moses Talbot. Hocking was no doubt the one chiefly at 
fault. 1 Palfrey says that " the business, as threatening mis- 
chief to all the colonies, was taken up by the General Court 
of Massachusetts." 2 The Massachusetts Court record is as 
follows : " Upon a complaint made to John Winthrop, Esq., 
then governor, by a kinsman of John Hocking, lately slain 
at Kennebec, by one of the Plymouth Plantation, desiring 
that justice might be done upon the offender, the Court, 
taking into consideration the same, hath ordered that Mr. 
John Alden (being there present when the said Hocking 
was slain) shall be detained here, till answer be received 
from those of Plymouth, whether they will try the matter 
there or no, or that sufficient security shall be taken that 
he, the said John Alden, shall not depart out of the limits of 
this patent, without leave from the Court or governor." It 
seems that John Alden gave the security. 3 Goodwin relates 
that " Alden was found at large on bail, and on Standish's 
presentation of the case Alden and his sureties were fully 
discharged. Yet the new governor, Dudley, committed the 

1 Hutchinson, ii. 474, note; Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 381. ; 

2 Palfrey, i. 338. 

8 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 119. 



174 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvn 

fresh indignity of putting Standish under bonds to appear 
before the Massachusetts Court in two weeks and make oath 
as to Plymouth's rights, as well as to the special facts of the 
Hocking case. At the time set, Standish returned to Bos- 
ton, bearing a letter sent by Prence (who was governor in 
1634), but written by Bradford. This note was probably of 
the thorough and severe nature which the case demanded, 
for Dudley answered it unofficially, and made an effort to 
dispose of the matter by private diplomacy ; nor did he dis- 
close Bradford's letter, even to his council. But the bluff 
Standish discomfited him by demanding that a reply be 
given him in open court. Dudley was then forced to pro- 
duce the letter in court, where it seems to have given much 
offense, but the members finally evaded the matter by de- 
claring that, as it was only an answer to one of Dudley's, it 
did not require a reply. 

" Standish and Alden then went home, bearing Dudley's 
private note. This pleaded for harmony, and made some 
talk about the honor of suffering wrong patiently, — a sub- 
ject upon which the irascible Dudley can have known little ; 
. . . Plymouth was too weak to redress her wrongs by force. 
When her righteous indignation had somewhat cooled, the 
excellent Winthrop, to allay the storm aroused by his bitter 
rival, Dudley, induced Plymouth to request all the planta- 
tions to send delegates, including their clergy, to meet at 
Boston, and, after hearing all who chose to appear, decide 
the Hocking case, with full power, but without ' prejudice 
of the liberties of any place.' . . . These, however, after 
reviewing the case with care, formally and fully exonerated 
the Plymouth men, and declared that Hocking alone had 
been to blame. The Bay officials also undertook to satisfy 
the English lords of the justice of this decision, — an effort 
in which they succeeded." 1 Dudley and Winthrop both 
wrote to England "to mediate peace." 2 "Lord Say and 
Brook replied to Mr. Dudley." 3 Bradford adds, " Thus 

1 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 383. 

2 Winthrop, i. 137. 8 lb., i. 145. 



1 634] THE HOCKING CASE 175 

'was their love and concord renewed,' — an expression which 
admits that it had been suspended." 1 

We have introduced this long account of a not very re- 
markable matter in itself, because it seemed to be another 
instance in which Dudley has been misunderstood and mis- 
represented. It is important at the start to remember that 
the government of the colonies was at this time in special 
danger of being reorganized by the home government. And 
this, if it were accomplished, meant the destruction of all 
that the Puritans held most sacred in America. Hence 
they were deeply solicitous to avoid such a catastrophe. 
Winthrop has given us in pathetic language his conviction 
of the danger. He says : "And besides had brought us all 
and the gospel under a common reproach of cutting one 
another's throats for beaver." 2 The author from whom we 
quote evidently thinks that the intermeddling of Massachu- 
setts in the affairs of the other colonies was officious. He 
assures us that the "excellent Winthrop" came forth serene 
from retirement " to allay the storm aroused by his bitter 
rival, Dudley." 

The colonies were, however, so connected with the mother 
country and with each other that their interests very soon 
forced them into a union for common defense. The arrest 
of Alden and Standish were attempts to make assurance 
doubly sure that a satisfactory examination should be entered 
into, either in Plymouth or in Massachusetts, that they might 
have a reasonable explanation ready when called upon by the 
government in England and by Lords Say and Brooke. The 
importance of this is more manifest when we recall that the 
wicked Laud was at the helm of state. 

But the most singular feature of this case is the undoubted 
fact that Dudley was the one, and only one, among his asso- 
ciates who did not approve of the action of Massachusetts in 
this affair. He seems to have been censured for opposition 
to Plymouth in the matter, when he was always really on her 

1 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 382-384. 

2 Winthrop, i. 131. 



176 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvil 

side of it. He was clear-sighted enough to discover earlier 
than his associates what they all saw and accepted at last, 
that Hocking was himself wholly in fault. The action of 
Dudley in enforcing, as the executive, the opinion of a major- 
ity of the Court must not be regarded as declaring his own 
personal opinion. We have, fortunately, evidence to direct 
us in discovering his own views of this case, which Bradford 
calls " one of the saddest things that befell them since they 
came." 

Cotton Mather was almost contemporary with Dudley, and 
knew many men who had taken part in these matters. The 
following is believed to be his statement : " When it was 
thought meet to make a change, the lot of advancement fell 
in the first place upon Mr. Dudley, who was the first that 
succeeded Mr. Winthrop in the governor's place, into which 
he was chosen at the Court of Election in the year 1634 ; in 
which year there falling out some occurrences of more diffi- 
culty than before, Mr. Dudley was in a needful hour called 
to the government ; 1 for in the case that concerned Hock- 
ing, of [Piscataway] who was slain at Kennebec by some of 
Plymouth, Mr. Dudley differed from all the rest of the bench, 
and yet was concluded afterwards to be in the right ; 2 and 
peradventure, if he had not been so steadfast fixed to his 
own principles and judgment, but to have been swayed by 
the bias of other men's inclinations, some inconvenience 
might have fallen out ; for the person murdered was one that 
belonged to the Lord Say, who was better known to Dudley 
than to any other gentleman upon the bench, yet that did 
not sway him to alter his judgment when he saw he had rea- 
son on his side ; 3 yet, did he not passionately [or, we think, 

1 Mather seems to consider it fortunate that in this unusual difficulty 
the clear head of Dudley was at the helm of state. 

2 If this is correct, Dudley was in favor of Plymouth and against 
Hocking from the first, and in opposition to the other members of the 
General Court; the friends of the Pilgrims have therefore unjustly 
censured him and failed to comprehend his real position in this case. 

3 This seems to show that he was firmly against Hocking and on the 
side of Plymouth. 



1634] THE HOCKING CASE 177 

' irascibly '] oppose those that differed from him, but pla- 
cidly [as was his general custom and excellent judicial man- 
ner] bore their dissent. 1 Dudley's wisdom in managing this 
business will best be understood by his own beautiful let- 
ters, [two in number,] to Mr. Bradford, the ancient governor 
of Plymouth, though at that time another [Prence] was in 
place." 

Letter of Thomas Dudley to Governor William Bradford 
of Plymouth Plantation : — 

Good Sir, — I have received your letters by Captain 
Standish, and am unfainly glad of God's mercy towards you 
in the recovery of your health, or some way thereto. For 
the business you write of, I thought meet to answer a word 
or two to yourself, leaving the answer of your governor's 
letter to our Court, to whom the same, together with myself 
is directed. I conceive (till I hear new matter to the con- 
trary) that your Patent may warrant your resistance of any 
English from trading at Kennebec, and that blood of Hock- 
ing, and the party he slew, will be required at his hands. 
Yet do I with yourself and others sorrow for their deaths. 
I think likewise that your general (public) letters will satisfy 
our Court, and make them cease from any further intermed- 
dling in the matter. 

I have upon the same letter set Mr. Alden at liberty, 
and his sureties, and yet, least I should seem to neglect the 
opinion of our Court and the frequent speeches of others 
with us, I have bound Captain Standish to appear the third 
of June at our next Court, to make affidavit for the copy of 
the Patent, and to manifest the circumstances of Hocking's 
provocations ; both which will tend to the clearing of your 
innocency. 2 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 1870, 217. 

2 It is evident that Dudley's sympathies are strongly with Plymouth ; 
but with executive responsibility, the terror of Archbishop Laud and 
his commission for regulating plantations, the wrath of Lords Say and 
Brooke, and the well-known opinions of the General Court impending 



178 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvn 

If any unkindness hath been taken from what we have 
done, let it be further and better considered of, I pray you ; 
and I hope the more you think of it, the less blame you will 
impute to us. At least you ought to be just in differencing 
them, whose opinions concur with your own, from others 
who were opposites ; and yet I may truly say, I have spoken 
with no man in the business who taxed [accused or censured] 
you most, but they are such as we have many ways hereto- 
fore declared their good affections towards your plantation. 
I further refer myself to the report of Captain Standish and 
Mr. Alden ; leaving you for this present to God's blessing, 
wishing unto you perfect recovery of health, and the long 
continuance of it. I desire to be lovingly remembered to 
Mr. Prence, your governor, Mr. Winslow, Mr. Brewster, 
whom I would see if I knew how. The Lord keep you all. 
Amen. Your very loving friend in our Lord Jesus, 

Thomas Dudley. 
Newtown, the 22 of May, 1634. 1 

If we are correct, Dudley, as executive, had in the in- 
terests of peace and good neighborhood sent a letter to 
the Plymouth government, asking the important question, 
" whether they will try the Hocking case themselves at 
Plymouth, do justice in the case, and relieve both colonies 
from English resentment. 2 And he had received, in answer, 
a very disagreeable letter, which was of such an inflammable 
nature that he did not deem it wise in the interests of peace 
and good-fellowship to read it publicly ; he was certain that 
the bitterness contained in it would tend to interrupt inter- 
colonial friendship and comity, as it did, in fact, when finally 

over him, he felt it a solemn duty to take security that Plymouth would 
have the case determined according to the law and evidence for the 
safety of all the colonies and protection against their common enemies 
in England. It was of vital importance to Massachusetts that nothing 
bordering on lawlessness might furnish excuse for English interference 
with their government. 

1 Bradford's Hist. Plym. Plant., §§ 200, 201. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 119. 



1634] THE HOCKING CASE 179 

presented. He appears in this transaction in the noble atti- 
tude of a peacemaker and Christian gentleman, doing all in 
his power to prevent a further breach between the sister 
colonies. Dudley, bent upon this course, withheld as long 
as he reasonably could from the Court of Massachusetts the 
discourteous answer which he had received from Plymouth. 
He was, however, forced by the warlike Standish at last to 
present it and take the consequences. The purport and 
drift of this answer is manifest from the satisfaction of 
Standish in calling for the reading of it, and the wrath which 
it called forth in the Court of Massachusetts. The fore- 
thought and wisdom of Dudley in this matter are clearly 
vindicated. He was convinced that his friend Lord Say had 
no case, and that the needful thing was for both parties to 
possess themselves in patience, and that perfect reconcilia- 
tion would follow their sober second thought ; and the event 
proved that he was correct. The manly dignity and strength 
of Dudley among his contemporaries is revealed in this case 
clearly and distinctly. We possess, fortunately, another let- 
ter of Dudley, which we think fully sustains the theory 
which we have presented of his position : — 

Sir, — I am right sorry for the news which Captain 
Standish and other your neighbors and my beloved friends 
will bring unto Plymouth, wherein I suffer with you by reason 
of my opinion which is different from others, who are Godly 
and wise amongst us here ; the reverence of whose judgments 
causes me to suspect mine own ignorance, yet must I remain 
in it, till I be convinced thereof. 1 I had thought not to have 
shown your letter to any, but to have done my best to recon- 
cile differences betwixt us, in the best season and manner I 
could ; but Captain Standish requiring an answer thereof 
publicly in the Court, I was forced to produce it, and that 

1 It appears that he was suffering alone with Plymouth, and on its 
side of the question, yet without conceit of opinion, and even with 
reverence for the judgments of his opponents. His attitude is most 
excellent, devoid of any diplomatic effort to win favor to himself. 



180 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvn 

made the breach so wide, as he can tell you. [This result 
Dudley strove in vain to avoid.] I propounded to the Court 
to answer Mr. Prince's letter, your governor, but the Court 
said it required no answer, it being an answer to a former 
letter of ours. I pray you certify Mr. Prince so much, and 
others whom it concerneth (that no neglect or ill manners 
be imputed to me) thereabout. 1 The late letters I received 
from England, wrought in me divers fears of some trials 
which are like to fall upon us ; and this unhappy conten- 
tion between you and us, and between you and Piscataqua, 
will hasten them, if God with an extraordinary hand do not 
help us. To reconcile this for the present will be very diffi- 
cult, but time cooleth distempers ; and a common danger 
approaching to us both, will necessitate our writing again : 
I pray you therefore, Sir, set your wisdom and patience at 
work and exhort others to the same, that things may not 
proceed from bad to worse. So making our contentions like 
the bars of a castle, 2 by that a way of peace may be kept 
open, whereat the God of peace may have entrance in his 
own time. If you suffer wrong it shall be your honor to 
bear it patiently ; but I go too far needlessly in putting 
you in mind of these things. 3 God hath done great things 
for you, and I desire his blessings may be multiplied upon 
you more. I will commit no more to writing ; but com- 
mending myself to your prayers, I am your truly loving 
friend in our Lord Jesus, 

Thomas Dudley. 
Newtown, June 4th, 1634. 4 

1 This solicitude respecting good manners is characteristic of him. 
We desire always to emphasize the fact that the usages of good society 
became him as a part of his nature. 

2 The words " bars of a castle " are from Prov. xviii. 19 : "A brother 
offended is harder to be won than a strong city ; and such contentions 
are like the bars of a castle." 

3 Mr. Goodwin, the historian of Plymouth, evidently regards this last 
Christian teaching of Dudley as insincere, sentimental cant. We think, 
on the contrary, that he spoke words of soberness and reason, springing 
from an earnest purpose to do justice. 

4 Bradford's Hist. Plym. Plant., § 201. 



1634] THE HOCKING CASE 181 

Mather further relates, that " By this letter it appears that 
Mr. Dudley was a very wise man, and knew how to express 
his mind in apt and gentle expressions, not willing to provoke 
others, although he were never so confident that he was in 
the right ; for by his wise and moderate proceedings in the 
case, he satisfied their neighbors at Plymouth, who thought 
they were injured by the unnecessary intrusion of the juris- 
diction of the Massachusetts, in a matter which did not really 
concern them, and maintained peace at home amongst them 
that so much differed from him in the case then depending 
before them." 1 

Governor Bradford is very charitable to the action of Mas- 
sachusetts in this matter. 2 

We think it is quite proper at this point to ask whether it 
was the "excellent Mr. Winthrop" who did the most to allay 
this storm, or the wise, deliberate, peace-loving Dudley ? 
And again, whether it is not quite certain that " Mr. Dudley 
did not at all arouse the storm ? " Also if it is not, on the 
whole, reasonably clear that heretofore great injustice has 
been done in this case to the patriotic services of Dudley ? 

The great reconciliation with Plymouth was completed, 
and happiness restored on this side of the ocean ; but from 
England, louder, clearer, and more ominous were the mutter- 
ings of discontent towards the colonies, and in particular 
towards Massachusetts. 

Archbishop Laud and other members of the Privy Council 
had been informed by disaffected persons, who were always 
busy in stirring up the English government against New 
England and the charter of Massachusetts, that the Puritans, 
among other wrong-doings, were setting up in America an 
independent church and state; hence in February, 1634, a 
number of ships departing from England were intercepted, 
and their passengers required to take the oath of allegiance 
to the English crown, and to promise conformity with the 
Prayer-Book. 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 218. 

2 Bradford's Hist. Plym. Plant., § 202. 



iS2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvn 

But on the 28th day of April, 1634, a commission was 
issued, with Laud at the head of it, to take charge of the 
American colonies, to hear complaints, to secure conformity, 
to make laws, " ordinances and constitutions, concerning the 
state public of the said colonies or utility of private persons, 
and their lands, goods," etc. There were twelve of these 
commissioners, and they were further directed as follows : 
" And we do, furthermore, give unto you, or any five or more 
of you, letters patent, and other writings whatsoever, of us 
or of our royal predecessors granted, for or concerning the 
planting of any colonies, in any countries, provinces, islands 
or territories whatsoever, beyond the seas, and if, upon view 
thereof, the same shall appear to you, or any five or more 
of you, to have been surreptitiously and unduly obtained, or 
that any privileges or liberties therein granted, be hurtful to 
us, our crown or prerogative royal, or to any foreign princes, 
to cause the same, according to the laws and customs of our 
realm of England, to be revoked, and to do all other things 
which shall be necessary, for the wholesome government and 
protection of the said colonies and our people therein abid- 
ing." 1 Here was unlimited power over the fortunes of the 
colony in the hands of its most relentless and malignant 
enemies. 

1 Hutchinson, App., i. 502-505. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

We constantly note the compassion of writers for Win- 
throp ; he was worthy of it, but it is a mistake to reverence 
him as the entire government of the colony, in these trying 
times when the little state had to prepare to defend itself 
against the tyranny of a nation possessing the most power- 
ful naval force in the world. We ought to regard with 
admiration the heroic energy, the Spartan bravery, the sub- 
lime trust in God and a righteous cause, which nerved these 
patriots to arm themselves in the autumn of 1634 to defend 
their liberties and their new-made homes on the shores of 
Massachusetts Bay. Neither will the world soon forget who 
was the governor of the old commonwealth in this hour of 
her trial. American oratory for more than a century has, 
on the annual national festival of the Fourth of July, set 
forth the magnificent fortitude of our fathers in the Revolu- 
tion, in arms against the same Britons ; but there were more 
than four millions of Americans then, while Governor Dud- 
ley ruled over only four thousand Englishmen in 1634. 

Their records tell the pathetic story of their solicitude for 
the preservation of that which was dear to them, and which 
the world is beginning at last to see was of priceless value 
in the enfranchisement of our race. 

The General Court ordered, September 3, 1634, " That 
there should be a platform made on the north east side of 
Castle Island, and an house built on the top of the hill to 
defend the said platform. It was further ordered, that war- 
rants shall be sent to the constable of every plantation, to 
send in money or workmen to make that which they have 
already done, three days apiece towards the fort at Boston, 
both of new comers and others for every hand able to work 



1 84 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvm 

(except magistrates and ministers) that are behind, to be 
delivered to Captain Underhill, before the next Court of 
Assistants." x And on the same day power was given to im- 
press men for the public works. The colony now seemed 
like one armed camp, " facing fearful odds " and shrinking 
from no responsibilities, for their faith was in Jehovah him- 
self, whose breath withered the hosts of Sennacherib. They 
proceeded to fortify Boston, Dorchester, Charlestown, Castle 
Island, and Salem. 

" It is ordered, that the captains shall train their bands 
once every month, giving a week's warning before (except 
in July and August), and that the captain shall have liberty 
to train all such unskillful men as are at their own hands, so 
often as they please, provided they exceed not three days in 
a week." 2 

They appointed a committee with power to manage war 
for a year, and we find some writers declaring Winthrop to 
have been at the head of this committee ; but Dudley was 
now first in war. " It is ordered, that the present governor 
[Thomas Dudley], John Winthrop Senior, John Haynes, 
John Humfrey, and John Endicott, Esq., shall have power 
to consult, direct, and give command for the managing and 
ordering of any war that may befall us, for the space of a 
year next ensuing, and till further order to be taken herein." 3 
Dudley was the foremost soldier in the colony. He was in 
1644 chosen sergeant major general, or commander-in-chief, 
of the forces of the colony. 

The Court proceeds further in preparations for war, and 
orders a beacon forthwith on " the sentry hill [Beacon Hill] 
at Boston, to give notice to the country of any danger, and 
that there shall be a ward of one person kept there from the 
first of April to the last of September, and that upon the 
discovery of any danger, the beacon shall be fired, an alarm 
given, as also messengers presently sent by that town where 
the danger is discovered, to all other towns within this juris- 
diction." 4 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 123. 2 lb., i. 124. 8 lb., i. 125. 4 lb., i. 137. 




FACSIMILE OF MASSAC 






\MmMm)M 



aktt v Catuute' 



uxor mr\n^.> o 



■1 i<6aff 






X tck' v&v 



MftVmfvt&j 

-~ -4 aS toe titci>i6 ajvrcfa. 

i. not tritnjuhui&c V^cfj&i Ov wfialWo f. .... ct&c 
K ffaifict w Cv ^{iuat*tv - 






1 j>atttt»^ tfia*Jon:'to «v\HiuV C 







ITS CHARTER OF 1629 



1634] THE CHARTER ANNULLED 185 

Massachusetts was now ordered to lay its charter before 
the Privy Council, with the purpose if it was once there, no 
doubt, to extinguish it. 

Winthrop says, " Mr. Cradock wrote to the governor [Mr. 
Dudley] and assistants, and sent a copy of the Council's 
order, whereby we were required to send over our patent. 
Upon long consultation whether we should return answer or' 
not, we agreed, and returned answer to Mr. Cradock, excus- 
ing that it could not be done but by a General Court, which 
was to be holden in September next." 1 

And thus, by first one excuse and then by another, they 
put off the sending of the charter, delaying with Fabian 
policy for a more convenient season, which never came. " A 
writ of quo warranto was issued against the charter, and it 
was declared null and void, and Gorges was created vice- 
regal governor of New England. But death swept off their 
arch-enemy Mason at a critical moment, and the British gov- 
ernment found all it could attend to henceforth for some 
time, in caring for the discontented factions at home." 2 

" The elements that gave energy to a commonwealth, in 
peace or war, are strikingly disclosed and illustrated in the 
history of Massachusetts under the first charter. A more 
efficient government for the preservation of order, security, 
and the common welfare has never existed ; and the rapidity 
with which the public resources were brought to bear in 
military movements, while it was repeated at the opening of 
the war of Independence, has never been surpassed, even in 
our day, which has witnessed the uprising in their might of 
a great people to save the national life." 3 

The unpopularity of Winthrop at this time appears in the 
appointment of a committee at the first Court after his de- 
parture from office, " to take an account of John Winthrop, 
Esq., for such commodities as he hath received of the com- 

1 Winthrop, i. *I37. 

2 Maverick's Brief Description of N. E., 1660, 18. 

8 Mass., Its Early Hist, Lect. Lowell Inst., by Charles W. Upham, 
245, 246. 



186 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xviii 

mon stock. 1 The account of Governor Winthrop is duly 
recorded on the Court record the next September. 2 Hutch- 
inson says, " After he was out of the chair, he was questioned 
in such a manner, as appears to have been disagreeable 
to him, concerning his receipts and disbursements for the 
public during his administration. Having discharged him- 
self with great honor . . ." 3 Robert C. Winthrop says in 
regard to this that he is not disposed to complain of the re- 
quest for an account. " It exhibits the scrupulous exactness 
which was demanded of the servants of the commonwealth 
in those early days, and inculcates a lesson of responsibility 
which may well be studied by their successors." 4 It was 
not, however, the request for the account that disturbed the 
mind of Governor Winthrop. No honest man would object 
to that ; it was the manner in which it was done, it was the 
critical spirit which was abroad, it was " ingratitude, more 
strong than traitors' arms," that went to his heart. He 
nobly vindicated himself, and in that effort gave an interior 
view of his service to the public which is priceless. 

The friends and admirers of Governor Dudley may well 
congratulate themselves that nowhere on the public records 
is to be found any attempt to put him under investigation, 
or his administrations, civil, military, or judicial, which in 
whole or in part continued through the twenty-three most 
important years, under the first charter. 

The Court turned aside from the consideration of a fearful 
foreign war and preparations to resist cruel enemies, to make 
war upon the vain fashions of society, as follows : " The 
Court, taking into consideration the great, superfluous, and 
unnecessary expenses occasioned by reason of some new and 
immodest fashions, as also the ordinary wearing of silver, 
gold, and silk laces, girdles, hat bands, etc., hath therefore 
ordered that no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter 
make or buy any apparel, either woolen, silk, or linen, with 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 120. 2 lb., i. 130. 

8 Hutchinson, i. 40. 

4 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 123. 



1634] SIMPLICITY IN DRESS COMMENDED 187 

any lace on it, silver, gold, silk or thread, under the penalty 
of forfeiture of such cloths, etc. 

" Also that no person, either man or woman, shall make 
or buy any slashed clothes, other than one slash in each 
sleeve, and another in the back ; also all cutworks, embroid- 
ered or needle-work caps, bands, and rayles, are forbidden 
hereafter to be made and worn, under the aforesaid penalty ; 
also, all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaver 
hats, are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter under 
the aforesaid penalty, etc. 

" Provided, and it is the meaning of the Court, that men 
and women shall have liberty to wear out such apparel as 
they have now provided of (except the immoderate great 
sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate great rayles, long wings, 
etc.) ; this order to take place a fortnight after the publish- 
ing thereof." 1 

" It is further ordered, that no person whatsoever shall 
either buy or sell any tobacco within this jurisdiction after 
the last of September next." 2 "Whereas complaint hath 
been made to this Court that divers persons within this juris- 
diction do usually absent themselves from church meetings 
upon the Lord's day, power is therefore given to any two 
assistants to hear and censure, either by fine or imprison- 
ment (at their discretion), all misdemeanors of that kind 
committed by any inhabitant within this jurisdiction." 3 

It certainly is matter of surprise that even among these 
Puritans, in the administration of Dudley, something of the 
" vain pomp and glory of this world " appears in the follow- 
ing : " Further it is ordered, that at every General Court 
there shall be six men appointed by the governor for the 
time being, out of the town where he lives, to attend, with 
halberts and swords, upon the person of the governor, and 
the rest of the members of the Court, during the space of 
the first day of every General Court, and that there shall be 
two men appointed by the governor to attend, in like man- 
ner, at every particular Court, at the public charge." 4 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 126. 2 lb., i. 236. 8 lb., i. 140. 4 lb., i. 142. 



188 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvm 

The question which caused the greatest trouble to the 
Court in this September session was the desire of Hooker 
and his church to remove to Connecticut, which they ac- 
complished two years later. Different reasons have been 
assigned for their anxiety to depart. It has been thought 
that Cotton and Hooker were in the way of each other, and 
that they did not agree well. It has been suggested that 
the approaching Antinomian troubles hastened their depar- 
ture. These do not appear on the record as the causes, 
and are a matter therefore of inference. Winthrop says : — 

" The principal reasons for their removal were, i. Their 
want of accommodation for their cattle, so as they were not 
able to maintain their ministers, nor could receive any more 
of their friends to help them ; and here it was alleged by 
Mr. Hooker, as a fundamental error, that towns were set so 
near each to other. 2. The fruitfulness and commodious- 
ness of Connecticut, and the danger of having it possessed 
by others, Dutch or English. 3. The strong bent of their 
spirits to remove thither. 

" Against these it was said, 1. That, in point of con- 
science, they ought not to depart from us, being knit to us 
in one body, and bound by oath to seek the welfare of this 
commonwealth, etc." 1 " Upon these and other arguments 
the Court being divided, it was put to vote ; and of the 
deputies, fifteen were for their departure, and ten against it. 
The governor [Thomas Dudley] and two assistants were for 
it, and the deputy [Roger Ludlow] and all the rest of the 
assistants were against it (except the secretary, 2 who gave 
no vote) ; whereupon no record was entered, because there 
were not six assistants in the vote, as the patent requires. 3 

*** Winthrop, i. *i4o. 

2 Simon Bradstreet, son-in-law of Dudley, who was with him from 
Cambridge, where the petitioners resided. 

3 It is quite possible that Governor John Haynes voted with Gov- 
ernor Dudley and the Cambridge faction, to let these people depart for 
Connecticut ; both he and Governor Ludlow joined the emigrants when 
they finally went. 



1 634] AN ERA OF REVOLUTION 189 

Upon this grew great difference between the governor 
[Thomas Dudley] and assistants, and the deputies. They 
would not yield the assistants a negative voice, and the 
others [that is, the governor and assistants], considering how 
dangerous it might be to the commonwealth, if they should 
not keep that strength to balance the greater number of the 
deputies, thought it safe to stand upon it." J 

The negative voice became a vital question in the politics 
of the colony in 1643. The colony was powerless to let 
Hooker and his associate emigrate to Connecticut, so they 
all turned to the ministers for light and consolation, and 
waited two years for the way to open, and for Massachusetts 
to learn how foolish it was to hold unwilling and restless 
people who were constantly considering the perfection of 
the place where they wished to be, and could find no con- 
tentment until they had freedom to go and abide on that 
desired spot of earth. 

Dudley saw the uselessness of the effort to retain these 
people from the first, and did what he could to set them 
free ; but he had to yield to the opinion of the majority and 
wait for the people of Massachusetts to learn that they could 
not retain them for a long time against their fixed determi- 
nation to depart. He exercised at all times distinguished 
patience with the adverse opinions of other people. This 
ennobled his life, and rendered his character greater in the 
minds of his contemporaries, and ought to extend its influ- 
ence more and more in public estimation. 

He was at the head of the colony in this most remarkable 
and revolutionary period, when the people were contending 
for and securing their share in the government, when perils 
at home were only surpassed by far more ominous perils 
from abroad. There was at the helm of state then a man 
both vigilant and sagacious ; there was neither doubt nor 
confusion in the administration, and we discover no mistakes 
which lie at the door of the governor. It is sometimes 
thought that the most able man in the colony at that time 
1 Winthrop, i. *i4i. 



190 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xvm 

was the Rev. John Cotton, and that its success was due to 
his wisdom. But no minister was permitted to hold civil 
office ; he could only advise, and had no living voice or vote 
in the government. Dudley did not affiliate very much with 
him in America, although they were warm friends in Eng- 
land, and he appears to have been the only magistrate who 
had the courage to say to Cotton and to the other ministers, 
in a polite, graceful, and most convincing manner : Please to 
attend to your own legitimate calling. 

Governor Dudley was, first, conscientious ; second, utterly 
fearless ; third, remarkably gifted with common sense, liberal 
in politics, guided by principles of permanent importance 
rather than by temporary expedients. Indeed, he and other 
Puritans believed that by adhering to the literal words of 
the Old Testament, regarded as a statute book, they were 
certain to be right, since they were guided by the Eternal 
and Unchangeable, indeed by Truth itself. 

The attempt has been made to detract from his public 
importance, on the ground that he was permitted to hold the 
office of governor only four terms of one year each, while 
Governor Winthrop enjoyed the public confidence for longer 
periods. This comparison of popularity has no force, since 
the people had only just begun to govern themselves, and 
rotation in the office of governor was a cardinal topic at the 
end of Governor Winthrop's first term as it never had been 
before. Dudley himself, as I have already pointed out, was 
no doubt a strong advocate of this rule, for he took to him- 
self the office of governship not oftener than once in five 
years. His friend and neighbor, John Haynes, of the same 
Cambridge faction, succeeded him after his first term in 
office, while Dudley was elected at once an assistant. If 
any one is inclined to account it a day of small things, and 
to belittle the conspicuous characters in this undertaking in 
Massachusetts, it would be well for him to remember that 
" the guiding and directing force was supplied by an ele- 
ment which was itself moulded on the banks of the Cam 
and the Isis, under the influence and refinements of the best 



1 634] DUDLEY NOT AN OFFICE-SEEKER 191 

culture which the England of that day could give." 2 Dud- 
ley, it is true, was not himself a university man, but he was 
a very studious and scholarly person, who on both sides of 
the sea removed from place to place to be the companion 
and pupil of the first men of the university, and thus brought 
himself in touch with the best learning of his period through- 
out his mature years. But above and beyond this appears 
the conclusive fact that, without deceit or political subter- 
fuge he sustained himself in the high places of power, retain- 
ing to the very end of life the confidence and reverence of 
the wisest and best men among his contemporaries. Nothing 
less than great gifts, great acquirements, and great virtues 
could have achieved such success. 

1 Franklin B. Dexter's Influence of the English Universities in the 
Development of New England. 



CHAPTER XIX 

We delight to think of the assistants at this September 
Court, 1634, entertained at the house of Governor Dudley, in 
Cambridge, as they had been received by Governor Winthrop 
during his long administration at his home in Boston, when 
the Court sat in that town. 1 

Governor Dudley was now in his prime, affluent in worldly 
possessions, rich in experience, full of information gathered 
from books, his mind stored with incidents connected with 
the great men and events of two wonderful generations in 
English history. Here he then sat at the age of fifty-eight 
years, at the head of his table, with a generous, dignified 
manner, dispensing colonial hospitality and entertaining the 
nobility of Massachusetts with the good things of life. 

These people were accustomed to society and fond of good 
cheer. They must have been excellent company, at least for 
each other, scoffers to the contrary notwithstanding. Anne 
Bradstreet assures us that her father was " A Prizer of good 
Company." 2 The Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, who was person- 
ally acquainted with Dudley, said of him : — 

" A table-talker, rich in sense, 
And witty without wit's pretense." 8 

Human nature has much in common under all conditions 
and disguises. Wise, learned, experienced, and good men 
have abundant resources for entertainment, especially if they 
possess culture, social arts and graces, sincerity in speech 
and manner, — qualities which surely distinguished the gov- 
ernor in the drawing-room and at the head of his table. 

1 Winthrop, i. *i32, *I44. 

2 Epitaph on Thomas Dudley, by Anne Bradstreet. 

s History of Dudley Family, i. 83 ; Mather's Magnalia, i. 123. 



1634] DUDLEY AND ENDICOTT COMPARED 193 

Governor Dudley and the Court did what they could to re- 
concile the Indian tribes to each other, and to induce them 
to make peace, instead of stimulating their warlike natures to 
destroy each other. This shows the humane and excellent 
quality of these Christian people, when their selfish interests, 
in the estimation of those who seek only power and are 
influenced by the greed of gain to revel in the destruction of 
weaker races, would have been best subserved by their ruin. 
They regarded them as wards committed under divine ap- 
pointment to their care and protection. 

They furnish us in this instance with a lovely picture of 
the power and influence of our holy religion over the petty 
and base elements in human nature. 1 

A favorite method of reducing the relative importance and 
merit of Governor Dudley is to compare him and match him 
with Governor Endicott. But the resemblance between them 
in education, in refinement, in temper, or in any other re- 
spect, was slight and to the advantage of Dudley ; they were 
both indeed resolute, vigorous Puritans. Governor Dudley 
could not have been induced, as Endicott was, to have defaced 
"the cross in the British ensign at Salem." 2 

He was not, like Endicott, " rash and without discretion, 
taking upon him more authority than he had, and not seek- 
ing the advice of the Court." 3 Dudley was never in con- 
tempt of court for his rashness, and forced, like Endicott, to 
make his submission and acknowledgment of his offense. 4 

Governor Dudley was also too large a man to allow the 
arguments against the cross in the ensign to prevent him 
from unfurling it with Harry Vane in 1636. He had 
marched with it at the head of his column in war, and was 
not in a mood to share in its mutilation or destruction. The 
conduct of Governor Winthrop in this matter of the ensign 
in 1636, and also the doubt and the fear of the whole Court 
of Assistants in this miserable business, render it certain 

1 Winthrop, i.*i49; Knowles's Memoir of Roger Williams, 97. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 137, 145, 146; Winthrop, i. *i5o, *is8, and note. 
8 Winthrop, i. *I58. 4 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 157. 



i 9 4 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xix 

that Dudley was less fanatical than the Court, than Winthrop 
or Endicott, and that he was more dignified and sensible than 
any of them. 

The last official act of Governor Dudley, according to Win- 
throp, in his administration as governor in 1634-35, was as 
follows: "The governor and assistants sent for Mr. Wil- 
liams, the occasion was, for that he had taught publicly, that 
a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate 
man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man 
in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of 
God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and 
very clearly confuted. Mr. Endicott w^s at first of the same 
opinion, but he gave place to the truth." * Winthrop seems 
to leave the inference that Williams did not give place to the 
truth, but clung to his error. 

Cotton Mather says: "The Court, about a year before they 
proceeded unto the banishment of this incendiary, sent for 
the pastors of the neighboring churches, to intimate unto 
them their design, of thus proceeding against him ; which 
yet they were loath to do, before they had advised the elders 
of it, because he was himself an elder. Mr. Cotton, with the 
consent of the other ministers, presented a request unto the 
magistrates, that they would please to forbear prosecuting 
of him, till they themselves, with their churches, had in a 
church-way endeavored his conviction and repentance ; for 
they alleged, that they hoped his violences proceeded rather 
from a misguided conscience, than from a seditious principle. 
The governor [Thomas Dudley] foretold unto them, you are 
deceived in the man, if you think he will condescend to learn 
of any of you ; however the proposal of the ministers was 
approved and allowed. ... He renounced them all as no 
churches of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 

Dudley was correct in his estimate of Williams and of the 
absence of the childlike, teachable spirit in his constitution. 
He was certain that they might as well argue with the north 

1 Winthrop, i. *I58. 

3 Mather's Magnalia, ii. bk. vii. chap. ii. § 5, 431, 432. 



1 634] DUDLEY AND WILLIAMS 195 

wind, and this opinion of him was fully vindicated. The un- 
tenable position taken by Williams in this matter shows how 
little he comprehended the forces of civil government. The 
oath is made even now, and has been ever since that day, 
the formal cement which binds every officer of government, 
professed Christian or otherwise, from the president of the 
republic down to the petty officer of the smallest school 
district, except a few who are permitted to affirm. It is in 
constant use in court. We know that patriotism, conscience, 
and reverence for truth are the real forces underlying, but it 
will be long before these uses of oaths will disappear, or the 
question of regeneration will be a condition precedent to the 
administering of them to officers-elect or to witnesses in 
court. It may be claimed still that Williams was in this 
matter of oaths centuries in advance of his age, but such an 
assumption is not important. Dudley, who in his judicial 
service was in the constant use of oaths, was justified in 
regarding these doctrines as full of public peril 1 and tending 
towards anarchy. We are required to examine carefully the 
share Dudley had in dealing with Williams, because most 
writers who defend Williams find it needful to say bitter 
things of Dudley, to paint him with dark colors, because he 
has now become the standard in literature representing the 
bigotry of the Massachusetts Puritans. 

Governor Winthrop entered earnestly and argumentatively 
into the reasons for the action of the colony and Court in 
their treatment of Williams, and one can discover in reading 
his Journal no disapproval of the attempt of the Court to 
send Williams to England. We learn, however, from the 
letters of Williams that Winthrop had at that very same 
time, certainly not in very good faith toward his associates in 
the government of Massachusetts, put it into the head of 
Williams that Rhode Island was his best place of escape. 2 

1 The author deems it to be his duty to remark that he personally nei- 
ther adopts the public estimate of the value of oaths, nor the peculiar 
opinions of Williams. 

2 Knowles's Memoir of Williams, 74. 



196 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xix 

That refuge the Massachusetts Court was anxious to keep 
Williams out of, and therefore sought to send him to Eng- 
land, lest he should from his near vantage ground sow tares 
and heresy in Massachusetts. This adroit conduct, if we are 
correct, may call forth hosannas from the friends of Williams, 
but it was too costly a price for Winthrop to pay for their 
approval. 1 

Winthrop's loyalty to the Court is in his Journal made to 
appear firm and consistent. 2 The Court thereupon sent an 
officer to Salem to arrest Williams, who had escaped and 
gone towards Rhode Island with at least the probable know- 
ledge of Winthrop, who had aided and abetted his escape, 
and directed him to Rhode Island, which place he might 
never have known of, or found at all, but for Winthrop and 
Winslow, and might have been safely returned to England. 

Williams says : " It pleased the Most High to direct my 
steps into this bay, by the loving, private advice of the ever- 
honored soul, Mr. John Winthrop, the grandfather, who, 
though he were carried with the stream for my banishment, 
yet he tenderly loved me to his last breath." He evidently 
understood Winthrop to have approved of his departure. 

But Williams wrote in a letter to Major Mason, of Con- 
necticut, which appears in the Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety's Collections, i. 275, 3 as follows : "When I was unkindly 
and unchristianly, as I believed, driven from my house and 
land, and wife and children, in the midst of an New England 
winter, now about thirty-five years past, at Salem, that ever- 
honored governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote to me to 
steer my course to the Narragansett Bay and Indians, for 
many high and heavenly and public ends, encouraging me, 
from the freeness of the place from any English claims or 
patents. I took his prudent motion as a hint and voice from 

1 We have heretofore detected Winthrop in the matter of placing his 
house in Cambridge ; making promises both to the citizens of Cam- 
bridge and of Boston so in conflict with each other that faith had to be 
broken with one party in order to perform promises made to the other, 
— a course of conduct which is not commendable. (P. 96, this volume.) 

2 Winthrop, i. *I70, *I7S, *I76. 8 Pub. Narr. Club, vi. 335. 



1634-35] WILLIAMS GOES AWAY 197 

God, and waiving all other thoughts and motions, I steered 
my course from Salem." 

A commission was sent to Captain Underhill to apprehend 
Williams at Salem, to have him returned to England. Under- 
hill went to Williams's house in Salem, and found that he 
had been gone three days. Winthrop appears to have had 
reasonable cause to believe that Williams had gone to Rhode 
Island under the suggestion of his own secret letter to him. 
But he continues in his Journal as follows : "But when they 
came to his house they found [just as though he did not 
know the fact in advance] that he had been gone three days 
before, but whither they could not learn." Can there be a 
reasonable doubt that Winthrop knew all this time well 
enough what road Williams had taken under his own per- 
sonal direction ? 

Blackstone, who left England, as he said, "to avoid the 
Lord Bishops, and Massachusetts to be free from the Lord 
Brethren," had preceded Williams to Rhode Island, having 
sold his Boston estate. Perhaps Winthrop thought Williams 
could not do a wiser thing than to follow Blackstone into 
Rhode Island. It is important to remember that the suffer- 
ings of Williams in his immigration to Rhode Island arose 
from his own choice of place. The Court desired his com- 
fortable passage to England instead of privations in the 
wilderness among Indians. 

Winthrop says further : " It was agreed to send him [Wil- 
liams] to England by a ship then ready to depart. The rea- 
son was, because he had drawn above twenty persons to his 
opinion, and they were intended to erect a plantation about 
Narragansett Bay, from whence the infection would easily 
spread into these churches." * Thus he, entertaining, or 
claiming to entertain, such sentiments, secretly conspired by 
his letter to spread this infection in the churches, and to 
thwart the very efforts being made by his associates to pro- 
tect them. He united with the Court, as one who believed 
the influence of Williams an infection, which they had wisely 
1 Winthrop, i. *I75, *iy6. 



198 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xix 

concluded, first, to quarantine in Salem six months, and, find- 
ing this useless, had resolved to send to Europe. Winthrop 
not only deceived the Court intentionally or otherwise ; he 
deceived all the world by these remarkable entries in his 
diary, and the truth would never have been known but for 
the letter of Roger Williams. 

Nevertheless there will be found persons who will approve 
of his humane motive in his concealed effort to aid Williams. 
But we are unable to discover a reasonable excuse for him. 

The satisfaction that some persons find in charging the 
misfortunes of Williams to Dudley and Haynes is indeed 
quite remarkable. They speak of "the mild and amiable 
Winthrop, who was the ablest as well as the most liberal man 
of his age and place." 1 Arnold says : "The bigoted Dudley 
had succeeded to the chief magistracy as the leader of the 
most restrictive party in Massachusetts. The persecution 
of Williams is to be attributed to a policy of which Dudley 
and his successor Haynes were the exponents." 2 It seems 
never to have entered the minds of these writers that it was 
the colony that was being persecuted, and that Williams 
was the intolerant man. They seem to forget that Williams 
might be at fault in part, as well as the honest government 
which was calmly trying to maintain its existence in the face 
of its enemies. Mr. Arnold finds, on page 147, an opportunity 
to use still more bitter language respecting Dudley, although 
when he has once used the word " bigoted," he has nearly 
exhausted the ancient stock of vituperation. That word 
covers more malignity in the opinion of some persons than 
any other epithet of its class ; it may, however, be strength- 
ened by the addition of the word "narrow." 

We are thoroughly convinced on the authorities that Wil- 
liams was induced to depart from Massachusetts solely on 
political grounds, simply on a question of public policy, which 
had nothing to do with religious liberty. Soul liberty was 
an afterthought with him. 3 

1 S. T. Arnold's Hist. R. I., i. 46. 2 lb., i. 46. 

8 Pub. Narr. Club, ii. 4-8; Ellis's Puritan Age, 267-291 ; Palfrey, 



1634-35] WHY WILLIAMS WENT AWAY 199 

What had the alleged bigotry of Dudley to do with the 
question of his departure, or how could it complicate it in 
any way ? Was it not a departure from propriety and justice 
to attribute to Dudley disagreeable names which had nothing 
to do with the issue ? The order for the so-called banish- 
ment : of Williams fortunately is matter of record, and shows 
for itself the whole sad story. It is as follows : " Whereas 
Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of 
Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and danger- 
ous opinions against the authority of magistrates, as also 
written letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and 
churches here, and that before any conviction, and yet main- 
taineth the same without retraction, it is therefore ordered, 
that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdic- 
tion within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect 
to perform, it shall be lawful for the governor and two of 
the magistrates to send him to some place out of this juris- 
diction, not to return any more without license from the 
Court." 2 

The government had only two ways of protecting itself 
completely against persons dangerous to society, — those 
were either capital punishment or banishment. They had 

i. 414 ; Dexter's As to Roger Williams, 79. Neither he, nor either of 
the thirteen proprietors signed the famous compact, "only in civil 
things." (R. I. Col. Rec, i. 14, 20; Baptist Quar., x. 199; Pub. Narr. 
Club, vi. 5.) 

1 Banishment in the case of Williams is, if it be proper to call it that, 
at least peculiar. He was sentenced, September 3, 1635, "to depart out 
of this jurisdiction within six weeks" (Mass. Col. Rec, i. 161); subse- 
quently he obtained " permission to remain until spring," but would not 
refrain from teaching in his own house, contrary to the understanding 
of the Court when it granted the respite ; it therefore resolved to send 
him to England, but he escaped and went to Rhode Island. Conse- 
quently the orders of the Court were neither of them ever executed upon 
him by its own officers. Williams's journey to Rhode Island was not 
in obedience to the Court, but was exactly what they most feared. We 
cannot state the occurrence more strongly for his side than to say that 
he was influenced indirectly to exile himself. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 160, 161 ; Pub. Narr. Club, ii. 8. 



200 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xix 

no prisons, reformatory institutions, or asylums. Williams is 
represented as liberty enlightening the world, and Dudley as 
a restrictive, soul-bound bigot. There is no question that 
Dudley was conspicuous in sustaining a reliable government 
in Massachusetts, which won confidence everywhere, drew 
emigrants, and made the other New England colonies pos- 
sible, and has been the generic model in a large measure 
both in the construction of American States and of the 
general government itself. Roger Williams, whose greatest 
work was the securing of the parliamentary charter of Rhode 
Island, — not a satisfactory one, — through the friendship of 
Harry Vane, the Earl of Warwick, and others, was a kind- 
hearted, good, even great man, but he could not endure re- 
straint ; he would not live even in church limitations which 
he had created himself. His writings, for two centuries and 
more, have greatly contributed to human freedom. He did 
not reach the head of government in his own town of Provi- 
dence until near the end of the first generation, when Win- 
throp and Dudley were gone. He held power only two years 
and eight months, from September, 1654, to May, 1657, 
during which the government was feeble and unstable. 1 

We freely grant that Williams was a great agitator, was 
an apostle of soul liberty in religion and politics, but not 
the discoverer of that doctrine, not constructive in state- 
craft. 2 At the same time we must claim with equal assur- 
ance that Dudley, the creator, guardian, fearless defender, 
and executive of that righteous law without which liberty 

1 He said himself in a letter to the General Court of Massachusetts 
after he had been in office one year, " Honored Sirs, I cordially profess 
it before the Most High, that I believe it, if not only they (the families 
at Pawtuxet and Warwick, under the rule of Gorton), but ourselves and 
all the whole country, by joint consent, were subject to your govern- 
ment, it might be a rich mercy." (Pub. Narr. Club, vi. 205 ; Knowles's 
Memoir of Roger Williams, 282, 283, 285.) 

2 Rhode Island took from its small beginning an impregnable posi- 
tion in defense of religious liberty and of civil freedom. It did not ori- 
ginate the doctrines, it merely exemplified them. (Crosby's Hist., 
Appendix to vol. ii. ; Cong, in Lit., by H. M. Dexter, 101-103, 704.) 
Individualism was so intense there that every element for a while 



1634-35] LIBERTY IN RHODE ISLAND 201 

cannot exist, was in character his equal, his superior in ad- 
ministrative power. 

seemed to repel every other in the community, each person and planta- 
tion became a political entity, avoiding entangling alliances, but the 
terror of being absorbed either into Plymouth or Massachusetts was 
the leading centripetal force that finally established the union into one 
colony. (Staples, Annals of Providence, 69, 70, 86, 89, 99, 100, 119, 136.) 
There was really no stable government until the royal charter of 
1663, ten years after the decease of Dudley; he never knew the colony, 
therefore, except in its unsettled beginning. This was the first charter 
which guaranteed soul liberty in Rhode Island, and was not secured by 
Williams, but by Dr. John Clarke, of Newport, who has received the 
distinguished designation of being called the " Father of Rhode 
Island." This charter recites : "Whereas, we have been informed, by 
the humble petition of our trusty and well beloved subject John Clarke, 
on behalf of Benjamin Arnold " and others. This charter was the Con- 
stitution of Rhode Island until the Dorr war in 1843. (Staples, 127.) 
It was then the oldest constitutional charter in the world. (Arnold's 
Hist, of Rhode Island, i. 294.) Williams was never governor under 
this charter, although he lived twenty years after it was granted. It is 
said, but not proven, that Clarke wrote those memorable words in the 
code (R. I. Col. Rec, i. 190) of laws under the Rhode Island Confeder- 
acy of 1647, when Williams's first charter, which met with little success, 
was adopted as the form of government for the colony. The words were : 
" And otherwise than thus what is herein forbidden, all men may walk 
as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his 
God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony with- 
out molestation, in the name of Jehovah, their God, for ever and ever." 
Clarke said in addressing the king with regard to his colony, "It is 
much on their hearts, if they may be permitted, to hold forth a lively 
experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be 
maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in 
religious concernments." (Preston's Documents, 112; Baptist Quar- 
terly, x. 187, 271 ; Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 4th series, ii. 11 1 ; Hist. Bap- 
tists, by Backus, i. 280, 349-351.) Neither John Clarke in Rhode 
Island, nor Thomas Dudley in Massachusetts, has yet received the 
attention from the public which their important services merit. If 
enmity against Massachusetts and the Puritans, or sympathy with the 
kind-hearted, magnanimous Roger Williams, be at the bottom of that 
public sentiment which appears on his side of the question, then Clarke 
has a stronger claim, for he was sentenced to pay a fine or be whipped, 
and was in prison in Boston more than three weeks, bearing testimony 
to his Baptist faith in July and August, 1651. (Ill Newes from New 
England, Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, 2d series, ii. 31-37.) 



CHAPTER XX 

Winthrop informs us that " divers jealousies, that had 
been between the magistrates and deputies, were now cleared, 
with full satisfaction to all parties." But a little later he 
says, " The deputies having conceived great danger to our 
state, in regard that our magistrates, for want of positive 
laws, in many cases, might proceed according to their dis- 
cretion, it was agreed that some men should be appointed to 
frame a body of grounds of laws, in resemblance to a Magna 
Charta, which, being allowed by some of the ministers and 
the General Court, should be received for fundamental 
laws." 1 The governor, deputy governor, John Winthrop, 
and Thomas Dudley, Esq., are deputed by the Court to 
make a draft of such laws as they shall judge needful for the 
well ordering of this plantation, and to present the same to 
the Court. 2 

The people were desirous of having established and well- 
known laws, and of avoiding as much as possible the per- 
sonal discretion of the magistrates in judicial decisions. 
They were convinced that without law there is no just 
condemnation, and that every citizen ought to have an oppor- 
tunity to know in advance the law which furnishes protec- 
tion to his person and property, and raises the presumption 
that every man knows the law "except the judges, who must 
be instructed by the lawyers." And, further, that ignorance 
of the law might be no excuse, they saw, as we see, the 
paramount importance of written laws. 

This subject was not suffered to rest long by the people, 
who had far more solicitude about it than the magistrates, 
who thought that laws were more valuable when they grew 
1 Winthrop, i. *i6o. 2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 147. 



1635-41] DUDLEY AND THE CODE 203 

one by one out of experience and the necessities of the occa- 
sion, than when constructed on theory in advance of their 
usefulness. 

The agitation went on, however, until 1641, when the 
Court approved of the famous Body of Liberties, which is 
the foundation of Massachusetts legislation in construction 
of statutes. 

The ministers were conspicuous in the creation of this 
code, as was natural and proper. If the Bible was the chief 
source to be drawn from, who were more learned in that 
volume than the men who had devoted their lives to the 
study of it ? It is notable that the greatest divine in the 
colony, John Cotton, tried his hand at it and failed ; and 
that the distinguished men learned in English common law, 
Dudley, Winthrop, and Bellingham, were invited to inspect, 
supervise, and improve, but not to construct the code to be 
prepared. This important work was left to Cotton and to 
Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich. Ward was first a lawyer, sec- 
ond a minister, and third a poet. He produced the organic 
law, which was amended, improved, and illuminated by all 
the legal and clerical wisdom of the fathers until it was duly 
perfected. 

The Puritans were almost as hostile to lawyers, as such, 
as they were towards heretics. Their aversion to them was 
as strong as that of Peter the Great, who, seeing them in 
England, said " that he had only one lawyer in his empire, 
and that he intended to hang him as soon as he arrived in 
Russia." They did not admit the profession to be a legiti- 
mate business, as poor Lechford learned to his sorrow. But 
Ward had been a lawyer, and was now first and foremost a 
minister, and had been so seasoned with the Bible, with 
grace, and with poetry, and withal was so well qualified, 
that the codification and construction of the laws was left in 
his hands, and by him completed, to the satisfaction of the 
Court. 1 

1 William H. Whitmore's Colonial Laws of Mass., containing also, 
The Body of Liberties of 1641, 5-9, 29-64. 



204 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

The position of Dudley on nearly all of these committees 
as counselor, from 1635 till 1641, shows us how important 
his judgment and wisdom were deemed to be in this begin- 
ning of the laws. He was probably the oldest man in the 
service, therefore the work of compiling and research came 
mostly to others ; but in the supervision and final determina- 
tion of the text we may well believe, from what we know of 
his judicial record, that no one had a greater influence than 
himself. 1 Ward was residing at Ipswich during the years 
1635 to 1636 inclusive, and Dudley was no doubt a constant 
attendant on his preaching at that place. They are believed 
to have been sincere friends, and it is thought that one of 
the motives of Dudley in going to reside at Ipswich was to 
be near to Ward and to attend his church. 

The General Court in 1635 enacted, "that Mr. Thomas 
Dudley, Mr. Beecher, Mr. Waltham, Mr. Duncom, Mr. Tyl- 
ley, and Mr. Peirce, these forenamed gentlemen or any three 
of them, whereof Mr. Dudley always to be one, shall have 
power to consult, advise, and take order for the setting for- 
wards and after managing of a fishing trade, and upon their 
account all charges of diet or otherwise, at the times of 
their meeting to be allowed out of the fishing stock." 2 Our 
attention is thus attracted again to the business qualities of 
Dudley, thus recognized in the colony, capabilities which had 
distinguished him in England. The fisheries were for many 
years the most important and lucrative interest in the com- 
merce of Massachusetts ; therefore we are not surprised that 
the business judgment of Dudley was to enter every trans- 
action, no matter who his associates were. This is a fine 
contemporary testimony to his capacity, integrity, and to 
the public confidence in him. 

Fish at one time in 163 1 was the only food of the people. 3 
Cape Ann was peopled by fishermen. 4 

In the time of great scarcity of food at Plymouth, their 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 161, 194. 2 lb., i. 15S. 

3 Wonder-Working Providence, by Edward Johnson, chap. xxiv. 

4 lb., chap, xx., 1 64 1. 



1635] DUDLEY AND THE FISHERIES 205 

little boat saved them. " It helped them to improve the net, 
wherewith they took a multitude of bass, which was their 
livelihood all that summer" of 1622. 1 Winthrop says, "An 
order was made, that all stocks employed in fishing should 
be free from public charge for seven years." Fishermen 
were free from military duty. He informs us further how 
lucrative the fisheries were in 1639 : " Here was such store 
of exceedingly large and fat mackerel upon our coasts this 
season, as was a great benefit to all our plantation. Some 
one boat with three men would take, in a week, ten hogs- 
heads, which was sold at Connecticut for £3 12s. the hogs- 
head." 2 This industry led to shipbuilding. 3 

The whale and cod fishing in Massachusetts, we are told, 
amounted in 1750 to $1,250,000 per year. The importance 
of the codfish to Massachusetts in its early history is suffi- 
cient reason for the emblem now suspended in the popular 
hall of the legislature of that State, that the representatives 
of the people, when they assemble to make laws, may not be 
unmindful of the source of prosperity and even of suste- 
nance of their predecessors, 4 just as the lord chancellor of 
England is required to sit on the wool-sack, to remind the 
noble lords that wool was once the staple production of the 
kingdom. 

These circumstances assist us to realize what an impor- 
tant figure in the business circles of the Bay the excellent 
citizen was whose life work claims our attention. 

It taxes severely our courage to question the opinions of 
Mr. Savage, but we are quite convinced that he misappre- 
hended the intent of the complaint against Winthrop, by 
Vane, Peters, Hooker, and others, set forth in Winthrop. 5 
If we are correct, he not only went astray here, but he has 
caused many rejoicing adherents to the same love of Win- 
throp, and aversion to Dudley, to fall into the like error with 
himself. 

1 Hubbard, 80. 2 Winthrop's Journal, i. *307, 308. 

8 Palf. Hist. N. E., i. 55. 4 Memorial Hist, of Boston, 47, note. 

5 Vol. i. *I77-*I79, note 1. 



206 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

It was made to appear at the meeting, it seems, that there 
was a Dudley faction and a Winthrop faction. Dudley had 
been governor in 1634, and had, with the energy of a busi- 
ness man, trained in the regular and correct methods of 
Judge Nichols at Westminster, and also with the strict dis- 
cipline of a soldier, set an example in the method of doing 
the public business which many people approved, and it 
became the subject of talk and of comparison not favorable 
to the administration of Winthrop. The Cambridge faction, 
with Haynes, Hooker, and other leading men in it, desired 
more dignity and less looseness in the management of affairs, 
according to approved precedents in well-organized govern- 
ments. The proceedings at this meeting had no connection 
with soul liberty, or with Winthrop's being lax or harsh 
with tender consciences or deluded fanatics. It pertained 
strictly to general rules and orders, regardless of the religion, 
politics, or parties which were to guide the conduct of the 
officers of court in all cases. Its trend was neither on the 
one hand in the direction of bigotry, nor on the other of 
latitudinarianism. It was absolutely neutral in religion. All 
of which we think will clearly appear from a careful perusal 
of the fifteen rules of court. 1 Savage says, "The general 
result of this conference must, I think, be regretted. When 
the administration of Winthrop was impeached by Governor 
Haynes for too great lenity, it seems natural that such severe 
tempers as Dudley, Vane, and Peters should unite in the 
attack." He succeeds in introducing the "severe temper" 
of Dudley. Mr. Savage could not easily pass Dudley in any 
event without striking him, neither would he fail to empha- 
size the meekness and gentleness of Winthrop. Yet the 
words of Dudley on that occasion were gentle, loving, excel- 
lent. He said, in the words of Winthrop's account, " Though 
there had been formerly some differences and breaches be- 
tween them, yet they had been healed, and for his part- he 
was not willing to renew them again ; and so left it to others 
to utter their own complaints." He was out of it, he was 
1 Winthrop, i. ^178, *i7g. 



1635] DUDLEY'S INFLUENCE OVER WINTHROP 207 

not the man to ask others to do his own disagreeable duties, 
he made no complaint, and must not be held as attempting 
to improve Winthrop's business habits. There have been 
persons who dated Winthrop's downfall into bigotry from 
the influence of this meeting and who charged the responsi- 
bility of his declension upon the innocent Dudley. Thus 
Dudley is made to bear the sins of both, and to go ever- 
more double freighted with opprobrium, in the estimation of 
people who seek to visit the sins of Winthrop upon others. 
It would be as reasonable to charge the Rules and Orders 
of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1899 with persecution 
in 1635 and 1636, as the Rules of Practice and Procedure 
agreed upon at the meeting in 1635. This affair and its con- 
sequences broadens, however, in the mind of Mr. Savage, 
until he includes the dreadful clergy as particeps criminis, 
with all the concentrated bigotry believed to have been in 
them. He regards Vane, Peters, and Dudley only as simple 
tools of the shepherds. Subsequent writers, as we have 
said, have freely taught that Winthrop took at this fatal 
juncture a proclivity towards bigotry totally unlike anything 
ever observed in him in England, and that the change is due 
to Dudley. So little is known of Winthrop's life in England 
that such statements do not amount to much. There is a 
difficulty about these allegations that Dudley was constantly 
leading Winthrop from sweetness and light to bigotry and 
darkness. If they were true they would manifest a docility 
and want of backbone in Winthrop which would be degrad- 
ing and in no way creditable to him. It is claimed that 
Winthrop did not recover from this evil influence until near 
the close of life, when the two " upon whom the weight of 
affairs did lie " 1 were for the last time brought together. 
Winthrop is declared to have passed out of life a changed 
man, having broken forth into clear light just before his 
departure, while Dudley continued in the darkness of bigotry 
and in the gall of bitterness. 

We are told that " during this last illness Winthrop was 
1 Winthrop, i. *i 77. 



208 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

waited upon by Thomas Dudley, the deputy governor, and 
pressed to sign an order for the banishment of a person who 
was deemed heterodox, but that he refused, saying that he 
had done too much of that work already." 1 This intensely 
dramatic scene has no foundation whatever, so far as we can 
discover. There is no known witness of the alleged event ; 
it is corroborated by no testimony whatever. George Bishop, 
in "New England Judged," page 226, made a charge similar 
to this respecting Marmaduke Matthews, who is said to have 
been the subject of this traditional story, which story in any 
event could not possibly have been true. Matthews, at the 
time of the death of Winthrop, was regarded as a godly min- 
ister at Hull and later at Maiden. His name first appears 
in the Colonial Record, May, 1649, iii. 153. But Winthrop 
died March 26, 1649. 2 

The authority for this false tradition usually relied on is 
Hutchinson, i. 151. But it appears first of all, as we have 
said, in "New England Judged," by George Bishop, pub- 
lished in 1 66 1, at London, more than a century before the 
publication of Hutchinson's history. Mr. J. A. Doyle, as 
usual, seems to relish this reflection on Dudley. He says : 
" The tradition is so unlike what a New Englander would 
have invented for the glorification of his countryman that I 
am inclined to believe it." 3 Doubtless his inclination to 
believe disagreeable traditions respecting Dudley will con- 
tinue, although they emanate from George Bishop, of Bristol, 
England, and not from "New Englanders." 

If, however, this story were strictly true, such official 
action of the deputy governor would not have been personal, 
he would be there by the order of the Court, in the discharge 
of his sworn duty. If Winthrop was incapacitated and phy- 
sically unable to perform the duties of his office, for that 
reason the deputy governor ought not to be held up to the 

1 R. C. Winthrop's Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 393. 

2 See Pool's Introduction, Wonder-Working Providence, ex., note 2; 
Winthrop, i. *273. 

8 English in America, i. 395, note. 



1635] DUDLEY AND WINTHROP FOREMOST 209 

execration of the world in comparison with the compas- 
sionate Winthrop, who, in health and vigor, having no veto 
power, would not have hesitated to execute the order of the 
Court. The comparisons between these noble men, who in 
most things were of one mind and of one heart, which are 
intended to injure the character of Dudley, are constructed, 
like this one, out of nebulous material and disappear upon 
examination. Massachusetts ought, with a grateful sense 
of obligation, to see to it that tardy justice is done to the 
memory of all her heroic founders. It is too much the 
modern habit to traduce them, to judge their acts by the 
standards of other centuries, or by the ideals of pamphlet 
writers who knew nothing of their responsibilities, nor could 
themselves for a week have enforced their dreams of impos- 
sible things. 

One memorable feature of the meeting, described in the 
early part of this chapter, was the fact that Winthrop had 
never discovered " any breach between his brother Dudley 
and himself, . . . neither did he suspect any alienation of 
affection in him." Nor was there any, and whoever seeks 
to establish the reverse is a public enemy. 

Another still more important fact was revealed on this 
occasion, and cannot be too much considered. It is that 
this group of the foremost men among the founders — two of 
them (Vane and Peters) conspicuous afterwards in England, 
both indeed martyrs of liberty in the struggles of the Eng- 
lish commonwealth, while one (Haynes) was then governor 
of Massachusetts, and was to be the first governor of Con- 
necticut, busy actors in the very scenes themselves — then 
left on record "that Dudley and Winthrop were those upon 
whom the weight of the affairs did lie." 1 Memorable words, 
worthy of inscription on a tablet at the Capitol in Wash- 
ington, beside the monument of the illustrious Winthrop, 
the noble representative of Massachusetts character and 
greatness, to keep in the memory of men, "while rivers 
run and grass grows green," these brothers, who were first 
1 Winthrop, i. *\"jy. 



210 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

and foremost in laying the foundations of the model com- 
monwealth. 

There was, as we have noticed, at Cambridge, in 1635 
and 1636, great discontent among the people. The entire 
church of Thomas Hooker was, with himself, determined to 
emigrate. Connecticut, Ipswich, and other places were con- 
sidered as places of residence. The reason given by these 
people was that they had not sufficient land. " Besides the 
need for fresh soil, it was thought that the personal ambition 
of Hooker, the pastor of Cambridge, made him eager for 
greater freedom and authority than he could enjoy in Mas- 
sachusetts." One New England chronicler indeed tells us 
that " two such eminent stars, such as were Mr. Cotton and 
Mr. Hooker, both of the first magnitude, though differing 
influence, could not well continue in one and the same 
orb." 1 

The pilgrimage of these people to Connecticut is a very 
attractive subject, but we cannot enter upon it. They ruled 
by magistrates during the first three years, and in 1639 
formed their government. Connecticut and Rhode Island 
were both overflows from Massachusetts. John Haynes, the 
first governor of Connecticut, as we have seen, had been the 
friend, neighbor in Cambridge, and successor in the guber- 
natorial office of Dudley, in Massachusetts, in 1635. We 
have already observed how he held Winthrop strictly to ac- 
count in office while he himself resided in Cambridge. 

Dudley, who did not differ materially in his ideas of 
church, state, or toleration from these associates, was relied 
upon when emergencies arose in any direction. He wrote 
no tracts explaining the motives of his actions, but Massa- 
chusetts is the answer to all detractors ; she is the result of 
their combined labors; "she needs no encomiums;" twenty- 
three years of his greatest and best work are in the earliest 
elements of her construction. 

Dudley caught with his friends also the spirit of wander- 

1 Hubbard, 173; J. A. Doyle's English in America, i. 207; George 
L. Walker's Thomas Hooker, 90. 



1635] DUDLEY'S RESIDENCE IN IPSWICH 211 

ing. He could not find it in his heart to* go so faraway 
as Connecticut ; he was too deeply interested in the holy 
experiment of liberty in Boston, and was under obligation to 
stand firmly by Massachusetts. 1 

Dudley, in 1635, sold his home in Cambridge to Roger 
Harlakenden, who had come with the Rev. Mr. Shepard, 
the new minister, who took the place of Hooker in August 
of that year. 2 He went with his son-in-law, Bradstreet, as 
he had gone with him to Cambridge in 1631, also with his 
son-in-law, Major-General Daniel Denison, and with his old- 
est son, Samuel Dudley, to Ipswich, in 1635. Other citizens 
of Cambridge went with them. Dudley remained there only 
four years, and then removed to Roxbury, where he would 
be nearer to the seat of government, and there resided dur- 
ing the remainder of his life. This last change of home 
took place the year before he was again governor, in 1640, 
which political office may have influenced somewhat his 
removal to Roxbury. 

We find an account of some of these people in "The Ham- 
matt Papers concerning the Early Inhabitants of Ipswich, 
published by Augustine Caldwell and Arthur Dodge, Ips- 
wich, 1 88 1." There is an account of Governor Dudley on 
pages 80 and 82 of No. 2, from which we take the follow- 
ing : "Granted to Thomas Dudley, Esq., in October, 1635, 
about nine acres of land between Goodman Cross, on the 
west, and a lot intended to Mr. Bradstreet on the east, upon 
which Mr. Dudley hath built a house. ... All which the 
said Thomas Dudley, Esq., hath sold to Mr. Hubbard. 3 The 
spot where Mr. Dudley's house probably was placed must 
have been one of the most desirable situations for a gentle- 
man's residence which could be found in this region. It 
had a copious spring of pure water, which gave name to the 
street. It was sheltered on the north and the east by the 

1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 219. 

2 Young's Chron., 517, note. 

3 Whether the following applies to the home of Governor Dudley. 
or his son, is not quite certain. 



212 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

hill, and open towards the south and southwest on an uncom- 
monly beautiful landscape." 

Three hundred pounds were levied, March 3, 1636, out of 
the several plantations for public use, and from the assess- 
ments we learn that Cambridge, at the time that Dudley 
left it, was the most wealthy in the colony, and that of the 
thirteen towns Ipswich was the sixth in respect to pro- 
perty. 1 

It was ordered, March 3, 1636, that the General Court 
from time to time, as occasion shall require, " shall elect a 
certain number of magistrates for the term of their lives, as 
a standing council, not to be removed but upon due con- 
viction of crime, insufficiency, or for some other weighty 
cause ; the governor for the time being to be always presi- 
dent of this council, and to have such further power out of 
court as the General Court shall, from time to time . . . 
endue them withal." It is thought that this council was 
created to induce the nobility and eminent people of Eng- 
land to come to America, and was designed to open the way 
for the enjoyment of titles of rank and nobility in this coun- 
try. This was repugnant to the sentiments of the great body 
of middle-class people who had settled on these shores. 
The Constitution of the United States, in the same spirit, a 
century and a half later, gives expression to the democratic 
republican genius of the American people, and allows neither 
titles of rank nor of nobility in the republic. This council 
had no public importance after three years, and its power 
constantly dwindled under the blows of the people, jealous 
and watchful over its progress from the beginning. It bears 
quite largely the impress of the Rev. John Cotton and John 
Winthrop. When, in 1634, Dudley succeeded Winthrop as 
governor, Cotton, a strong partisan of Winthrop, preached, 
at the General Court, " that a magistrate ought not to be 
turned into the condition of a private man without just cause, 
and to be publicly convict, no more than the magistrates 
may not turn a private man out of his freehold, etc., without 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 165, 166. 



163^39] THE STANDING COUNCIL 213 

like public trial," etc. 1 The council for life is more august, 
but it is of the same political sort. It was that conflict be- 
tween authority and the people in which our institutions 
were moulded and formed on both sides of the sea. The 
account of this council given by Winthrop is very instruc- 
tive, not only respecting its rise but its fall as well. 2 It was 
probably Cotton's address which, by its anti-American senti- 
ments, aroused the people still more against the Standing 
Council ; however that may be, they proceeded without more 
ado to wrest from it every semblance of authority or power 
in 1639. 3 There were never but four members of this coun- 
cil : Vane, Winthrop, Dudley, and Endicott. 4 

Richard Saltonstall, a former neighbor of Dudley at Ips- 
wich, even wrote a book to reveal " wherein the institution 
of the Standing Council was pretended to be a sinful innova- 
tion." 5 Dudley, into whose safe keeping this book had been 
placed, had found some very unsound, reproachful, and dan- 
gerous passages in it, and he proceeded at once to disarm 
them of their power to do harm, for which service he was 
exceedingly well qualified. The sympathy of Dudley was 
in general on the side of the people, and we are sure that 
neither he nor Winthrop sought the power and authority 
which had been so signally bestowed on them, because they 
were ex-governors par excellence. Yet they being made 
members of the Standing Council, perhaps to make place for 
Vane, especially by the political efforts of Cotton first, and 
the elders next, were not to be traduced and misrepresented 
by the ignorant and wrong-headed, not while Dudley had the 
facts in his memory and keeping. We could well and heartily 
wish that he had been also alive in these recent centuries to 
vindicate public services against the detraction of modern 
writers and annotators. Some persons who have gone in and 
out before their fellow creatures would, we are persuaded, be 
astonished at their own opinions in the light of honest truth. 
In this connection it goes to one's heart to read his thoughts 

1 Winthrop, i. *I32. 2 lb., i. *i85- 8 lb., i, 301, 302. 

4 lb., i. *302. 5 lb., ii. *64, *65- 



214 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xx 

while living, expressed in his letter to the noble Countess of 
Lincoln. " But we do desire, and cannot but hope, that wise 
and impartial men will at length consider that such malcon- 
tents have ever pursued this manner of casting dirt, to make 
others seem as foul as themselves, and that our godly friends, 
to whom we have been known, will not easily believe that 
we are so soon turned from the profession we so long have 
made in our native country." 1 This quotation indicates how 
important his early life in England, to the age of fifty-four 
years, is as a key to his subsequent life in America, always 
to be considered in connection with the records of Massa- 
chusetts during his period, and with the books and tracts 
composed by his rivals or hostile contemporaries and all 
subsequent detractors. 

All these controversies about the Standing Council and 
other matters had not in the least diminished the stable 
popularity of Dudley with the people, which he had won by 
faithful, self-sacrificing service from the beginning to the 
end, and thus when his usual gubernatorial year approached 
in 1640, he was elevated into the exalted station for the sec- 
ond time. It ought not to be overlooked, however, that the 
election of Winthrop and Dudley by the General Court of 
the colony to the Standing Council, set them apart as the 
two most eminent persons at that time in Massachusetts, 
with the possible exception of Governor Vane. This honor 
crowned six years of faithful service, in which they had 
attained to the fullest and highest confidence of the people. 
Winthrop was certainly able, wise, and amiable ; Dudley was 
fugged, just, courageous, untiring in energy. He had little 
patience with windy discussions and arrogant nonsense, 
which characteristic is admirable, worthy of his dignity and 
position. He was preeminently a man of action, and be- 
longs to that class of men in history who with sincere con- 
victions, clear heads, and iron nerves have achieved the best 
things in this world. These men ought to be judged by the 
average public sentiment of their period. We freely admit 
1 Young's Chron., 331. 



1636] EXTENSION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT 215 

that Dudley entertained a childlike belief in special provi- 
dences which would not in general be acceptable to this 
generation, yet perhaps in the course of time and the pro- 
gress of human mutations his ideas may be in fashion again ; 
and even now, we know that there are multitudes of excel- 
lent people who are in perfect accord with his opinions in 
these matters. 

It was ordered furthermore, on March 3, 1636, "that here- 
after there shall be only two General Courts kept in a year, 
viz., that in the third month, called May, for elections and 
other affairs, and the other the first Wednesday in October, 
for making laws and other public occasions of the common- 
wealth." This system was established, no doubt, by reason 
of the new county courts created this very session. This 
had in it the further extension of local government from the 
capital to the counties, and the distribution of justice as 
nearly as possible to the places where persons are to be tried 
by their peers. These excellent provisions came from the 
method and example found in the mother country. 



CHAPTER XXI 

The May election in the year 1636 was unique and of 
great historic interest. Sir Henry Vane, whose father, Sir 
Henry Vane, the elder, had filled some of the highest state 
offices during the reigns of James I. and Charles I., arrived 
in Boston the previous year. He was a man of education, 
although he left the university before completing his course 
there, and going abroad reinforced his Puritanism at Geneva, 
one of the exhaustless sources whence these doctrines were 
to be imbibed. He was everywhere welcomed in the colony 
by reason of his distinguished family and personal attain- 
ments. He was at once the subject of all praise, and so 
excited were the people with their newly discovered fran- 
chise, and so anxious to have a change and break the mo- 
notony of things, that, regardless of all other considerations, 
they instantly set aside the old founders, comforting them 
meanwhile with a councilship for life ; and believing that 
nothing in this wilderness could be too great or too excel- 
lent for this youth born in the purple, elevated him, after a 
sojourn here of six months, at the age of twenty-four years, 
to the chief magistracy of Massachusetts. 

The people soon found, however, cause to regret their rash 
and inconsiderate action. Winthrop, whether with a tinge of 
envy does not appear, relates that, " because Governor Vane 
was son and heir to a privy councilor in England, the ships 
congratulated his election with a volley of great shot." 1 
This is said to have been the first instance of such great 
honor to a governor-elect. 

It must have been a disheartening scene to those of the 
colony who remained behind, when one hundred of their best 
1 Winthrop, i. 187. 



1636] PEQUOT WAR 217 

people, with one hundred and sixty cattle, began their journey 
to Connecticut May 31, one week after this election. We 
have already considered, without much success, some of the 
causes of this democratic secession. 1 It was probably made 
in search for more space to expand in, for liberty in general. 
But great men are the wealth of any community, and two 
of them, Hooker and Haynes, departed at the head of this 
emigration. Dudley probably felt this separation more than 
any one else, since they had been his associates, neighbors, 
and political friends, and now he was left to the tender 
mercy of the triumphant Boston faction. The question soon 
arose whether the government in Boston would set up the 
colors on the fort, and thereby evince their loyalty to the 
mother country, or whether they would decline to do it, be- 
cause the royal cross of St. George within it was believed 
by many Puritans to be an emblem of Roman idolatry, for 
which reason Endicott had cut the cross out of the ensign 
in Salem. It is interesting to note in the writings of Rev. 
Mr. Hooker that he did not approve of the cutting the cross 
out of the English ensign by Governor Endicott. He there- 
fore was in accord with Governor Vane and Governor Dud- 
ley. 2 

The ensign was duly set upon the fort by the order of 
Governor Vane, sustained only by Governor Dudley. This 
act shows in a striking manner the quality of Dudley. He 
was large enough to make the needful distinction in the 
midst of the prejudice about him, and his life abounds in 
just such breezy exhibitions of obedience to conviction. 

The Indians killed John Oldham, of Watertown, Mass., 
and brought on the dreadful Pequot war, which resulted next 
year almost in annihilation of the tribe, perhaps the strongest 
and bravest in New England. This war was precipitated 

1 Mr. George E. Ellis says the Antinomian troubles in Massachusetts 
were the cause. Sparks's Am. Biog. ; Rev. R. Stansby to Rev. J. Wil- 
son, Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vii. 10, 11; Walker's Life of Hooker, 
88-90; Hubbard, 165, 166. 

3 Walker's Life of Hooker, 81, 82. 



218 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

upon the little colony of Connecticut mostly, which had less 
than two hundred men, who had been there less than a year, 
while the Pequots had one thousand men. But the hero of the 
colony, Captain John Mason, closed the war in one battle. 
The number of men to be furnished for this war by the towns 
of Massachusetts was one hundred and sixty, of which Bos- 
ton had the largest number, while Cambridge, reduced by 
the emigration to Connecticut, had now less than one half as 
many in her quota. The most serious question which arose 
during the administration of Governor Vane was the Anti- 
nomian controversy. Winthrop relates that one " Mrs. 
Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman 
of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two 
dangerous errors : i. That the person of the Holy Ghost 
dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can 
help to evidence to us our justification. From these two 
grew many branches ; as 1. Our union with the Holy Ghost, 
so as a Christian remains dead to every spiritual action, and 
hath no gifts nor graces, other than such as are in hypo- 
crites, nor any other sanctification than the Holy Ghost 
himself." 1 

Ann Hutchinson was a very gifted woman, who in 1636 
was at the head of a woman's association or club, where the 
sermons of several of the leading ministers of the colony 
were reviewed by her with considerable critical severity, the 
substance of the teaching of this club being that the minis- 
ters in general, except Cotton and Wheelwright, were blind 
leaders, holding views and teaching doctrines which might 
have been quite correct and proper in the Garden of Eden, 
when and where our first parents were under a covenant of 
obedience, but not so now in the last days of the new dis- 
pensation ; we have now instead a covenant of grace and 
faith, and may safely do what to us seemeth good without 
regard to law. 2 

The magistrates of Massachusetts permitted this woman 

1 Winthrop, i. 200. 

2 Mather's Magnalia, ii. bk. vii. chap. iii. §§ 8, 9, p. 447. 



1636] ANTINOMIANISM 219 

with her associates 1 to remain in the colony until 1638, and 
tolerated her teaching and influence before they banished 
her. Many writers do not seem to realize the anxiety of the 
Puritans both in England and America, at this time and 
before, respecting the doctrines of the Antinomians, En- 
thusiasts, Familists, and German Anabaptists, which they 
believed upon examination to be contained in the teachings of 
Ann Hutchinson and of the Woman's Club. How intense 
their solicitude was is manifest in the writings of nearly 
every Puritan of importance in the colony whose works are 
extant. 2 

There certainly was great reason to fear those persons 
who claimed to act under the authority of personal visions 
from Heaven, like the fanatical John of Leyden, not that 
they had yet attempted to legalize polygamy and unbridled 
profligacy, as had been done in the previous century at 
Munster and other places. The doctrine of justification by 
faith and the right of private judgment, so dear to Protest- 
ants, were interpreted by John of Leyden to mean that 
whatever a saint thought or did, was the will of God wrought 
by him and in him ; the moral law, the social law, the civil 
law, all laws, were indeed abrogated, and each individual 
was a law unto himself, each had a special dispensation from 
Heaven to commit sin without restraint, for in them it was 
not sin, because they were not " under the law, but under 
grace." 3 

The Puritans in England, as we have mentioned before, 
were moreover seriously tainted with this subtle, dangerous 
heresy. The watchful, clear-sighted, brave founders of Massa- 
chusetts saw this plague-spot, full of deadly influences, which 

1 Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vii. 100, m, note. 

2 Mather's Magnalia, ii. bk. vii. chap. iv. § 7, p. 477 ; John Winthrop 
and T. Welde's Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Anti- 
nomians, Familists, and Libertines that infected the Church of New 
England, 40; Hutchinson, ii. App., 513, 514, 516; Ann Hutchinson, 
Sparks's American Biog., 2d series, vi. 199. 

8 See Anabaptists, Cyclo. of Bib. Theolog. and Ecc. Lit., by McClin- 
tock and Strong; also Encyc. Britannica, i. 



220 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

had ruined the Christian life at Munster, 1 extending from 
Mrs. Hutchinson and Boston over their fair commonwealth, 
to pollute and destroy their cherished institutions. They 
determined finally, after two years, that they must join in 
the issue, and contend for self-preservation, for social exist- 
ence, and for religious liberty. Dudley in after years left 
his testimony that they were too long in arriving at this de- 
termination for the public good. Their solicitude was more, 
no doubt, as to the future fruits and influence of this false 
doctrine than to the evils springing from it in their genera- 
tion. Yet it is important to remember in this connection 
that Captain Underhill and the Rev. Mr. Knollys, 2 disciples 

1 Their fear of the German heresy is seen in the act of disarming. 
(Mass. Col. Rec, i. 211.) 

2 Since writing the above, our attention has been called to the subse- 
quently excellent, useful, and eminent career of Knollys in England. 
We have noted the attempt in certain directions to discredit the 
accounts of Winthrop, Hubbard, and Belknap respecting his alleged 
conduct in Dover, N. H., in 1641. Savage in his notes sustains Win- 
throp. Hubbard was contemporary and was then twenty years old. 
Hugh Peters says in a letter to Winthrop in 1640, Mass. Hist. Coll. (4th 
series, vi. 106), speaking of the troubles at Dover: "I conceive that 
two or three men sent over may do much good at this conflux of things." 
He says further: "I think this work falls naturally under the care of 
the council." Winthrop informs us that the next year, in 1641, "The 
governor and council considered of their petition, and gave commission 
to Mr. Bradstreet, one of our magistrates, Mr. Peter and Mr. Dalton, 
two of our elders, to go thither and to endeavor to reconcile them, and 
if they could not effect that, then to inquire how things stood and to 
certify us," etc. 

The letter of Peters quoted above, which has been said to sustain the 
reputation of Knollys, was a year before the discovery of his error, if 
we are correct. He confessed in open church. The commissioners of 
Massachusetts investigated. A suit for slander instituted by Knollys 
is used to defend him, but he did not have the courage to prosecute it, 
and at the best it is of doubtful importance. Winthrop had the best 
means of information from the commission and otherwise. He is very 
explicit in the details, and if he is discredited in this, a matter of such 
public celebrity, we must be in doubt respecting his general trustworthi- 
ness. " The tempter hath a snare for all." Knollys had experience, 
repented, lived a noble and useful life, and, like St. Augustine and a 



1636] ANTINOMIANISM 221 

and followers of Ann Hutchinson, put in practice at once 
the same disgusting and repulsive conduct which distin- 
guished the fanatics of Miinster. 1 Winthrop said, "What 
may they breed more if they be let alone ? " 2 

It was also\ Winthrop and T. Welde — and there are no 
stronger authorities — who said, in " A Short Story of the 
Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians," etc., pages 42, 
43 : " So it hath (been in the churches of Rome, and others, 
and so we may justly fear in these churches in New Eng- 
land, however that many that now adhere to these familistical 
opinions are indeed truly godly, and (no doubt) shall perse- 
vere to the end, yet the next generation which shall be 
trained up under such doctrines, will be in great danger to 
prove plain familists and schismatics. This discovery of a 
new rule of practice by immediate revelations, and the con- 
sideration of such dangerous consequences which have and 
might follow thereof, occasioned the Court to disarm all such 
of that party, as had their hands to the petition." 

Winthrop said at another time, " But God will teach them 
by immediate revelations, and this hath been the ground of 
all these tumults and troubles, and I would that those were 
all cut off from us that trouble us, for this is the thing that 
hath been the root of all the mischief." The following 
extract from the account of the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson 
presents Governor Winthrop as of the same opinion expressed 
by him before. 

" Court. We all consent with you. 

" Governor Winthrop. Ey, it is the most desperate en- 
thusiasm in the world." 3 

" I am persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is 
delusion." 4 

host besides, is entitled to our admiration and confidence. " The end 
crowns the work." (Hubbard, Mass. Hist. Coll., 2d series, vi. 363, 364; 
N.E.Reg, xix. 131; Christian Review, xxiii. 438; Cong. Quarterly, 
xiii. 38.) 

1 Winthrop, ii. 27-29; Mather's Magnalia, ii. 477. 

2 Hutchinson, ii. App., 514. 3 lb., ii. App., 513, 514. 
4 lb., i. App., 515. 



222 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

The following passage, believed to be the co opposition of 
Winthrop, is highly instructive as to his opinion : " So that 
the Court did clearly discern, where the fountain was of all 
our distempers, and the tragedy of Miinster (to such as had 
read it) gave just occasion to fear the danger we were in, 
seeing (by the judgment of Luther writing of those trou- 
blous times) we had not to do with so simple a devil, as 
managed that business, and therefore he had the less fear of 
him : but Satan seemed to have commission now to use his 
utmost cunning to undermine the kingdom of Christ here 
(as the same Luther foretold he would do, when he should 
enterprise any such innovation under the clear light of the 
Gospel), so as the light has not been known in former ages, 
that so many wise, sober, and well-grounded Christians, 
should so suddenly be seduced by the means of a woman, to 
stick so fast to her, even in some things, therein the whole 
current of Scripture goeth against them, and that notwith- 
standing her opinions and practice have been so gross in 
some particulars, as their knowledge and sincerity would not 
suffer them to approve, yet such interest hath she gotten 
in their hearts as they seek cloaks to cover the nakedness 
of such deformities." 2 

The vigorous position taken by the United Colonies of 
New England in 1644, in contending against this Antino- 
mian heresy, removes this issue out of a mere local struggle 
confined to Massachusetts, and reveals a general solicitude 
respecting the danger from it, which is entitled to full con- 
sideration, and cannot be lightly passed over. We quote 
as follows from the record : " That Anibaptism, Familism, 
Antinomianism, and generally all errors of like nature which 
oppose and undermine and slight either the Scriptures, the 
Sabbath, or other ordinances of God, and bring in and cry 
up unwarrantable revelations, inventions of men, or any car- 
nal liberty, under a deceitful color of liberty of conscience, 

1 A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians, 
Familists, and Libertines, etc., 1644, 40. 



1636] ANTINOMIANISM 223 

may be seasonably and duly suppressed, though they tvish as 
much forbearance and respect may be had of te7ider con- 
science seeking light as may stand with the purity of reli- 
gion and the peace of the churches" x 

The writers who take the side of Mrs. Hutchinson, and 
regard her as the brilliant forerunner of the present accom- 
plished woman, social and political leader, are inclined to the 
opinion that Winthrop had little sympathy with her prosecu- 
tion, and to allege that Dudley was the bigot who sought her 
destruction. But in the record of her trial in Hutchinson's 
" History of Massachusetts " (which account is thought to 
have been constructed in her interest and to misrepresent 
the Court), Winthrop took positive action, presided at the 
trial, did most of the summing up of the evidence, formu- 
lated the judgment of the Court, and was more conspicuous 
than any one else, and if the doings of that Court are to* be 
condemned, he cannot escape his full share of the responsi- 
bility. The quotations, however, already made, exhibit him 
in the strongest light against Mrs. Hutchinson, and leave no 
room for doubt. There is sufficient evidence that the fathers 
of Massachusetts, with great forbearance and long delay, 
sought to deal justly with Mrs. Hutchinson. They were at 
that time under unusual embarrassments, for on one side they 
were preparing for the dreadful Pequot war, while on the 
other they were constantly expecting a crushing blow from 
the hostile and vindictive Archbishop Laud, which might 
annihilate their holy experiment of government in America. 
They are surely entitled to our sympathy in their afflictions. 
They had faults, they were human and without large experi- 
ence in affairs of statecraft, but their record is secure in its 
essential features, and demands neither defense nor apology. 
Their love of justice is notable in the very beginning of their 
investigation into this heresy. They first called a synod at 
Cambridge, which met August 30, 1637, presided over by the 
very distinguished Rev. Thomas Hooker, then of Hartford, 

1 Plymouth Col. Rec, ix. 81, 82. 



224 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

Conn., and the Rev. Peter Bulkley, of Concord, Mass. The 
purpose of this synod was not to try persons for heresy, but 
to examine and test by the standard of the Scriptures, doc- 
trines believed to have been disseminated or approved by 
Mrs. Hutchinson or her club. 

This synod * discovered eighty-two well-recognized errors 
afloat in the community, chargeable in general to Mrs. Hutch- 
inson or her association. The synod attached to each of 
these errors a passage of Scripture, believed to be a sover- 
eign antidote for the poison contained in it. For Cotton 
Mather asserts with assurance that they "did unto reason- 
able men immediately smite the error under the fifth rib." 
These eighty-two errors, with the Scripture so attached, are 
to be found in " A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin 
of the Antinomians," etc. 

The citizens of Boston cannot forget that she commended 
herself to Harry Vane, the governor, the Rev. John Cotton, 
to Rev. Mr. Wheelwright, and to the church and town of 
Boston in general. Cotton and Wheelwright both recanted 
soon, 2 saw their errors, and were restored to the faith and to 
their brethren. The great name of the overrated Governor 
Vane has done very much to support Mrs. Hutchinson in the 
public estimation, and to create a strong aversion towards 
the government of Massachusetts which banished her. This 
opinion seems to demand that we should scrutinize with care 
the character and peculiar qualities of mind of Governor 
Vane. Investigation will remove, we believe, all surprise 
respecting the ascendency of Mrs. Hutchinson over him, for 
he was constitutionally susceptible to her Antinomian ideas 
and visions. PI is biographer, James K. Hosmer, says " that 
he was after a strange fashion a dreamer, devoted, when he 
could find leisure for it, to rhapsody and abstruse discussion, 
unintelligible to the men of his time, and the despair of those 
of the present day who seek to follow him." Thomas Car- 

1 The leaders were not ignorant peasants, but university men. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 67; Winthrop, ii. 162. This has been denied 
(Backus, i. 131), but the authority seems to sustain the text. 



1636] HARVARD COLLEGE FOUNDED 225 

lyle has set forth this fatal weakness in his character in his 
usual vigorous manner. 1 

Clarendon informs us that " Vane was not to be described 
by any character of religion, in which he had swallowed some 
of the fancies of every sect." 2 Hutchinson pronounces Vane 
to have been "obstinate and self-sufficient," and says further 
that " he craftily made use of the party which maintained 
these peculiar opinions in religion, to bring him into civil 
power and authority, and draw the affections of the people 
from those who were their leaders into the wilderness." 3 
Gardiner has given to us the conclusion of the whole matter 
in the following : " Vane coming to Massachusetts at a time 
of unexampled difficulty, found that Ann Hutchinson, volu- 
ble, ready, earnest, uttered doctrines which attracted strongly 
his mystical temperament. The absolute character of his 
intellect made him careless about expediency." 4 It has been 
said that " the departure of Vane was hailed as an inexpres- 
sible relief " to the government of Massachusetts. 

The founding of Harvard College is almost the only con- 
structive work in legislation during his term of office, but it 
was enough to redeem the time lost in controversy. It was 
perhaps the most important single event which transpired in 
the commonwealth during the century. 

"The Court agreed to give four hundred pounds towards a 
school or college, whereof two hundred pounds to be paid the 
next year and two hundred pounds when the work is finished, 
and the next Court to appoint where and what building." The 
next year "the college is ordered to be at Newtown." 5 

The departure of Governor Vane insured the downfall of 
the party of Mrs. Hutchinson. It is proper to mention in 
conclusion that Clarendon says "that the reason and under- 
standing of Vane in all matters without the verge of religion 
was inferior to that of few men." The world will never for- 

1 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, ii. part 7 of Int.; The Rump, 
227; also Letter 188, 250. 

2 Clarendon, vi. 2957. 8 Hutchinson, i. 73. 

4 Hist. Eng., viii. 174. 6 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 183, 208. 



226 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

get that he was one of the greatest of the democratic repub- 
lican martyrs, who received in his own person the vengeance 
of the Stuarts, and fell in the struggle for human freedom. 

We have extensively considered this Antinomian question, 
perhaps occupying too much space with it, because Governor 
Thomas Dudley has received a large share of censure in 
modern times, bestowed upon the magistrates who banished 
Mrs. Hutchinson. We have believed that justice could not 
be done to him without reviving thoughtfully the influences 
and public sentiments which prevailed before and at the 
time when the Court took action in this case. We also 
think that he has been made unduly prominent in this affair 
by the misfortune of having left some lines of poetry in 
his pocket, found after his decease, which have been much 
quoted on the supposition that they contain the concentrated 
bigotry of the seventeenth century. 

Dudley was deputy governor at the time, and was no 
doubt, next to Winthrop, the most influential in the over- 
throw of Mrs. Hutchinson. He said at her trial, " These dis- 
turbances that have come among the Germans [meaning espe- 
cially at Miinster] have been all grounded upon revelations, 
and so they have vented them, have stirred up their hearers 
to take up arms against their prince, and to cut the throats 
of one another, and these have been the fruits of them." 1 

1 Hutchinson, ii. App., 514. Dangerous, extreme, and fanatical pre- 
tensions of special endowment and guidance of the Holy Spirit are now 
and have been made for centuries with blasphemous presumption. They 
are neither new nor strange, although some persons have regarded Ann 
Hutchinson as unique in history. The danger which menaces a popu- 
lation of seventy millions from a few scattered irrational enthusiasts is 
insignificant; it was otherwise in Boston in 1636. 

Mr. George E. Ellis, who wrote the Life of Ann Hutchinson, and has 
given the Antinomians the benefit of able and faithful service, says, 
" The struggle was one of the series of strifes and assaults which aimed 
at the very life of the Biblical commonwealth." He also remarked, 
" But the Antinomian controversy was most threatening of convulsion, 
disaster, and of a final overwhelming catastrophe." He says further, 
" The reason given for this civil interposition, though consistent with 
the theocratic principle, was that Antinomian doctrines threatened civil 



1636] DUDLEY'S POETRY HOSTILE 227 

There are two or more versions of Dudley's poetry, but 
the following is believed to be the most approved : — 

" Let men of God in courts and churches watch 
O'er such as do a toleration hatch, 
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice, 
To poison all with heresy and vice. 
If men be left, and otherwise combine, 
My epitaph 's, I di'd no libertine." 

This poetry seems to have been the vehicle which has 
preserved the intense feelings of that epoch, and transmitted 
them, antiquated indeed, to our own times, and for these 
reasons we ought to read between the lines, and catch the 
real thought intended then to be expressed by it, and not to 
translate a new meaning into it. 

The usual method in the treatment of this poetry is to 
begin by depreciating the quality of it, which we at pre- 
sent cannot find time to defend. It is enough that Mather 
thought it to be creditable. Next, an important conces- 
sion is made as to the substance and truthfulness of the 
matter contained in it, to the effect that it well expresses 
the bigotry of the age and neighborhood. This may cer- 
tainly be considered exalted praise, because there is a vast 
amount of alleged poetry in the world which does not ex- 
press anything. Dudley may not have " married immortal 
verse to tune " with the beauty and perfection of the great 
poets, but he certainly has had the exceptional fortune to 
have gathered into a single stanza, if these persons are cor- 
rect, the sentiments of his associates, to have transmitted 
them to the coming generations, and to have been more 
quoted (which is said to be an indication of genius in poetry) 
than any contemporary ; and it is probable that he will con- 
order and pure morals. This justification was not wholly unsupported 
by thoroughly sincere reasons and apprehensions incident to the time 
and circumstances of the strife." He says also, " The immoralities and 
abominations of fanatical Antinomians in Germany in the previous cen- 
tury had not passed from memory, nor from living reference to them." 
(The Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 359, 360.) 



228 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

tinue to receive the same deference so long as the history of 
Massachusetts shall claim the attention of mankind. 

But unfortunately this composition has cruelly recoiled on 
Dudley, and has stimulated modern writers to hold him up 
as the chief bigot of his age. Every mention of him recalls 
to them his deathless lines. 

The first difficulty about the stanza is that there does not 
appear to be any real evidence that he wrote it. Mather 
says, to be sure, that they were " lines of his own compos- 
ing." But the general contemporary testimony is only that 
they were found in his pocket. They have, however, been 
so long attributed to him that we may as well consider them 
his own. 

This poetry must be read in the light of the Antinomian 
controversy. Every line of it is instinct with the issues of 
that struggle. How clearly the prevailing dread of anar- 
chistic revelations, making every one a law unto himself, 
appears in the " ill egg," which suggests a life of poison not 
yet in existence ! It was the fruit, the influence, of his age 
in disseminating this error, which the writer feared would 
blight their holy experiment, the hope of the world. 

Toleration, which ought sometimes to be translated indif- 
ference about religion, is a very popular word. It appeared 
in the above lines and seemed to be a prayer to Heaven, the 
last appeal of a Massachusetts man who had " fought a 
good fight and kept the faith," to save the commonwealth 
from the Antinomian rocks on which a sort of Christian 
democracy was shattered at Munster. 

The word "libertine" creates a disagreeable sensation, 
because it is conceived to include the modern liberal thinker. 
Its meaning was not that when used by Dudley : it was to 
identify the membership of one of an order of heretics of 
the Munster type. Webster defines the word as "one of a 
sect of Anabaptists, in the fifteenth and early part of the 
sixteenth century, who rejected many of the customs and 
decencies of life, and advocated a community of goods and 
of women." We ourselves in recent times took Dudley's 



1653] TOLERATION AND PERSECUTION 229 

side of this same question, and approved of the dispersion of 
the Mormons, and we would no more have " combined " with 
libertines than Dudley himself would have done it. 

Mr. Savage appears very anxious to relieve Governor 
Winthrop from the disgrace of having used the term Anti- 
nomian, which seems to be particularly offensive to him. 1 
But Winthrop, unfortunately for this position, applied the 
more disreputable term to them, viz., " Familistical per- 
sons." 2 The book, "A Short Story of the Rise, Reign, 
and Ruin of the Antinomians," said to have been written by 
Winthrop and T. Welde, 3 contains all the names ever applied 
to these people. Certainly there is no " exquisite rancor of 
theological hatred " in the use of terms which express the 
exact historic doctrines professed and held by people. Such 
names are given to designate, not to defame. The word 
"libertine," in the lines quoted, characterizes that class of 
heretics called also Antinomians and Familists, which at 
one time was supposed to threaten the complete destruction 
of the Massachusetts Colony. 

We affirm that we do not persecute, and we wonder how 
those good people of the seventeenth century could have 
thought themselves consistent with their claims to have emi- 
grated in search for liberty. The boundary line between 
what may safely be tolerated and what may not, changes 
with different periods. We now persecute people, not in the 
same manner but with the same spirit, using social ostra- 
cism ; we "boycott" them, we keep them out of our clan, 
or club, or church ; we make them feel, wherever we meet 
them, that we do not approve of them socially, religiously, 
or politically. The spirit in us is the same that has always 
been active in our race ; we are neither much wiser nor better 
than our fathers. There are now many dogmas in science 
and religion which are fighting their way against public opin- 
ion, and meeting opprobrium which, to the sensitive natures 

1 Winthrop, i. 215, note 1. 

2 lb., i. 256. 

3 lb., i. 249, note; Dexter's Cong, in Lit., App., 50, No. 972. 



230 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

of their sincere advocates, may be as oppressive and painful 
to endure as the ruder censures of two centuries ago. 

Thomas Dudley and his associates deemed it their duty 
to the church and state to extinguish what they thought to 
be dangerous, as we now consider ourselves under obligation 
to crush polygamy, vivisection, the liquor traffic, or the dis- 
tribution of indecent literature. Our methods are different ; 
our motives are the same. We seek, as they sought, to keep 
poison from the people by the power of the state. " The 
rigid uniformity of belief enforced in Geneva, or in Massa- 
chusetts, was enforced, partly at least, on political grounds, 
to insure a sufficient amount of cohesion in small commu- 
nities struggling for their liberty. Such communities cannot 
afford to tolerate those who only ask for toleration till they 
are strong enough to seize the government and refuse tolera- 
tion to others." 1 

Sometimes toleration, which is only in any instance endur- 
ing what we do not approve, marks the decay of faith and 
the substitution of indifference or insensibility to matters 
once esteemed vital. It is quite possible to permit liberty 
of opinion, of the press, or in religion, when the government 
is firmly established. " Only those who feel themselves 
secure can afford to tolerate a tax upon themselves, and 
toleration is then their wisest course." The Supreme Court, 
in the case of Reynolds v. United States, declared that 
" Congress was deprived by the Constitution of all legisla- 
tive power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach 
actions which were in violation of social duties and subver- 
sive of good order." Opinions charged with " soul liberty" 
are safe under this decision, but immediately when the 
thought appears in action, if the legislature in the exercise 
of its discretion deems the action subversive of good order, 
it may freely exercise the power of repression. 

If the people have revelations like Mrs. Hutchinson, and 
keep them to themselves, the Constitution and the court 
will protect them ; if, on the other hand, they express them 
1 Ritchie's Natural Rights, i. 178. 



i6s3] DUDLEY ENTITLED TO COMMENDATION 231 

in action, and such action is by the legislature deemed sub- 
versive of good order, they are liable to suppression, or, as 
they may call it, persecution. 

This was the exact ground of the Puritans. They did not, 
like the Church of Rome, seek to force their opinions into 
the minds of people by violent measures, nor to punish per- 
sons for their belief, but only for teaching or practicing 
heretical opinions. The Supreme Court, therefore, in our 
own time and the Puritans of the seventeenth century seem 
to be in essential accord and agreement in their principles. 

No person can have candidly examined these various re- 
cords without deep sympathy for Thomas Dudley. " Let 
not the land once proud of him insult him now." Burke 
once said, " Respecting your forefathers, you would have 
been taught to respect yourselves." He worshiped the one 
true God, as we worship Him, in a liberal, faithful, consist- 
ent obedience, which is worthy of modern imitation. He 
was as free from superstition as the most intelligent of his 
age. He could not have been narrow-minded in a general 
way, and at the same time "wise and just, ... in books 
a prodigal, they say, a living Cyclopaedia." We have already 
observed that both in England and America he sought the 
foremost scholars for his teachers and companions, men 
educated in all the wisdom of the great English universities. 
We shall have occasion to note later his active part in estab- 
lishing Harvard College, an institution of liberal learning. 
These and many other labors and characteristics of Dudley 
are convincing evidence that his mind was open to truth 
from all quarters. He was a great reader of books. But 
perhaps his political record is a^s convincing as anything 
which we possess as to his breadth and scope of thought. 
For we must consider him as one of the wise, political mas- 
ter-builders ; he had a share in all the progressive work in 
the construction of the Puritan commonwealth in Massachu- 
setts, which has not ceased to be the admiration of the 
world. " We know . . . what workmen wrought thy ribs 
of steel." If he was liberal in this work, it goes far to show 



232 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxi 

that he was as broad all around as his associates. Men are 
seldom wise and liberal in state matters who are much con- 
tracted in religious thought. 

In conclusion, the fathers sent away Ann Hutchinson be- 
cause they traced directly to her, as they thought, a claim to 
dangerous revelations inciting to acts subversive of the law 
and the gospel, which had overthrown church and state at 
Munster ; * they sent her away as a matter of public policy, 
but not until they had found, by means of a synod, eighty-two 
specimens, attributed to her influence, of the Munster poison, 
afloat in an infant state struggling into existence and not 
yet grown to such manly vigor that it could resist and cast 
out noxious influences without forcible remedies. 

1 " There stands upon record a most shocking instance of this [Ana- 
baptist delusion] in the dreadful commotions that were excited at 
Munster, in the year 1533, by certain Dutch Anabaptists, that chose 
that city as the -scene of their horrid operations. . . . Munster was to 
be the seat of this new and heavenly Jerusalem, whose ghostly dominion 
was to be propagated from thence to all the ends of the earth. . . . John 
of Leyden, the Anabaptist king of Munster, had taken it into his head 
that God had made him a present of the cities of Amsterdam, Deventer, 
and Wessel. . . . The progress of this turbulent sect in almost all of 
the countries of Europe alarmed all that had any concern for the pub- 
lic good. ... It may be safely affirmed, that, had it not been for the 
vigor and fortitude of this active and undaunted reformer [Martin 
Luther] the Lutheran Church would, in its infancy, have fallen a miser- 
able prey to the enthusiastic fury of these detestable fanatics." (Mos- 
heim's Eccl. Hist., iv.305, 437, 438; Kostlin's Life of Luther, 304-324.) 
Such was the dread in Massachusetts of this Antinomian doctrine, that 
men declared in their wills that they died free from its contamination. 
(See the wills of Dudley and Robert Keayne.) 

The British Parliament on the second day of May, 1648, passed an 
ordinance against Antinomians more severe than anything which ever 
appeared in America. This was more than ten years after Ann Hutch- 
inson's banishment. (Neal's Hist. Puritans, iii. 418-421.) Sir Harry 
Vane was a member, probably present. (Hosmer's Young Sir Harry 
Vane, 297, 298.) 



CHAPTER XXII 

It was ordered in October, 1636, that all the military men 
in this jurisdiction, including the whole colony, shall be 
ranked into three regiments : Governor Vane to be com- 
mander-in-chief, John Winthrop to be colonel, and Thomas 
Dudley lieutenant-colonel of the first regiment. It is not 
quite apparent why Dudley, who was more of a military man, 
was placed second in command, or why, as he now resided 
in Ipswich, he was not in the third regiment instead of the 
first. The election for governor and deputy governor in 
May, 1637, was an occasion of much anxiety. Religious and 
political interests combined to create great public excite- 
ment. The Boston faction was determined to return the 
present governor, Vane. The towns outside of Boston 
were dissatisfied with him, among other reasons because he 
was of the Antinomian party. Winthrop, the honored first 
governor, had now been out of office three years, rotation in 
office having been well exemplified ; in these stormy times of 
division and party faction he appeared to be the safest man, 
particularly with Dudley in the second place. 

As early as March the Court decided that it would not be 
expedient to hold the election in Boston, and selected Cam- 
bridge as the most convenient place. This action was a 
great mortification to Governor Vane. One thing which 
influenced the Court against Boston was a petition already 
mentioned, signed by many prominent citizens of that town, 
condemning the Court for its proceedings against Wheel- 
wright, the Antinomian. 

When the Court of Election opened at Cambridge at one 
p. m., May 17, 1637, another similar petition was offered, 
which Governor Vane wanted read, but which Deputy 



234 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxn 

Governor Winthrop objected to as being out of order ; the 
first business being the election under the charter, it must 
take precedence of all other matters. Still the governor 
would not proceed to election, and the deputy, Winthrop, 
called for a division of the members on that question. The 
majority voted to proceed to election. The governor, after 
more useless delay, at last submitted, and they proceeded. 
Winthrop was chosen governor and Dudley deputy. 

Vane and the Antinomian party were left out, and the 
cause of Mrs. Hutchinson in Massachusetts was forever lost. 
Hutchinson has an interesting note respecting this election, 
which must not be omitted. It is as follows : " Mr. Wilson, 
the minister, 1 in his zeal gat up upon the bough of a tree (it 
was hot weather and the election like that of parliament men 
for the counties of England was carried on in the field), and 
there made a speech, advising the people to look to their 
charter and to consider the present work of the day, which 
was designed for the choosing the governor, deputy gov- 
ernor, and the rest of the assistants, for the government of 
the commonwealth. His speech was well received by the 
people, who presently called out, 'Election, election,' which 
turned the scale." 2 

" In some of the first years, the annual election of the 
governor and magistrates of the colony was holden in this 
town [Cambridge]. The people, on these occasions, assem- 
bled under an oak-tree, which stood on the northerly side 
of the Common in Cambridge, a little west of the road lead- 
ing to Lexington. The stump of it was dug up not many 
years since." 3 This was probably the tree which furnished 
Wilson a commanding position, whence he turned the tide 
against Mr. Vane and his party, and carried the Great and 
General Court for Winthrop and Dudley. 4 

1 Of Boston, violently hostile to Antinomianism, the colleague of 
Cotton in the First Church, and also antagonistic to him in the Hutch- 
inson controversy. 

2 Hutchinson, i. 6i, note. 3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., vii. 9. 
4 Paige's Hist. Camb., 23, 24, note. 



1637] WINTHROP ELECTED GOVERNOR 235 

" There was great danger of violent tumult that day. The 
speeches on both sides were fierce, and they began to lay 
hands on one another, but the manifest majority on one side 
was a restraint to the other. . . . The sergeants, who used 
to attend Mr. Vane, laid down their halberds and went home 
as soon as the new governor was elected, and they refused 
to attend him to and from the meetings on the Lord's day 
as had been usual. They pretended that this extraordinary 
respect was shown to Mr. Vane as a person of quality. The 
Court would have appointed others, but Winthrop took two 
of his own servants to attend him. Mr. Vane professed 
himself ready to serve the cause of God in the meanest 
capacity. He was, notwithstanding, much mortified, and 
discovered his resentment ; although he had sat at church 
among the magistrates from his first arrival, yet he, and 
those who had been left out with him, placed themselves 
with the deacons, and when he was invited by the governor 
to return to his place he refused it." 1 

Mr. Savage does not think that a discourtesy was intended 
to Winthrop by the sergeants, but that their term of office 
had expired, and they had no authority to act or serve Win- 
throp. 2 Hutchinson does not seem to accord with Savage in 
this, neither does Mather. 3 

The next matter to attract notice is an order of the Court 
to keep out of the colony such persons as, in the opinion of 
the magistrates, might be dangerous to it. This called forth 
a long controversy between Winthrop and Vane, and fur- 
nished Vane with some discipline and some serious consid- 
erations respecting individual rights and the obligations of 
states, which had a place, and were valuable to him in the 
struggle for liberty in England, soon to follow after his 
return thither. 4 " The twelfth of the eighth month was 
ordered to be kept a day of public thanksgiving to God for 
his great mercy in subduing the Pequots, bringing the 

1 Hutchinson, i. 61, 62. 2 Winthrop, i. *220, note. 

3 Mather's Magnalia, i. 1 14. 

4 Winthrop, i. *224; Mass. Col. Rec, i. 193. 



236 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxn 

soldiers in safety, for the success of the conference, 1 and 
good news from Germany." 

They were all the while following with intense feeling 
the fortunes of the Thirty Years' War. Absorbed deeply in 
their own contentions and political evolutions, and anxious 
about the revolution in England, which was vital to their 
welfare in all directions, still they sympathized with the old 
Protestant cause, its heroes and defenders in Germany, and 
set apart a day, and returned thanks to Almighty God for 
the success of the soldiers of liberty, who have registered 
from age to age on fields of mortal combat the steps of 
human progress. The Puritans themselves had forsaken 
their homes in England, and come to this far-off wilderness 
to construct, maintain, and enjoy free institutions. No per- 
sons, therefore, in the habitable world had a more vivid 
sense of the importance of that freedom which had been 
achieved in the German wars. Thomas Dudley has expe- 
rienced as a soldier all that an earnest man can, who has 
enlisted and taken the risks of war because his heart was 
engaged in the objects of the struggle, because he loved 
and believed in the cause in which, moreover, he had lost 
in infancy his lamented father. He could never cease to 
remember their family sacrifices, the associations connected 
with continental war, and, above all, its purposes, objects, 
and results. And he, indeed, reinforced by vigorous and 
living experience, could heartily join in thanksgivings and 
hosannas ascending from the new world in behalf of the old. 

The following letter of Dudley to Winthrop furnishes 
some interesting suggestions respecting the religious con- 
troversies at that time. 

Sir, — Since my coming home, I have read over Mr. 
Lechford's book and find the scope thereof to be erroneous 
and dangerous, if not heretical according to my conception. 

His tenet being that the office of Apostleship doth still 

1 The synod which had discovered eighty-two particular Antinomian 
poisonous heresies. 



1638] DUDLEY AND LECHFORD'S BOOK 237 

continue, and ought so to do until Christ's coming, and that 
a church hath now power to make Apostles as our Saviour 
Christ had when he was here, other things there are but I 
pray you consider of this, and the inseparable consequences 
of it. I hear that Mr. Cotton and Mr. Rogers know some- 
thing of the matter, or man, with whom you may if you 
please confer. I hear also that he favoreth Mr. Lenthall 
and hath so expressed himself since Mr. Lenthall was ques- 
tioned by the ministers. It is easier stopping a breach when 
it begins than afterward. We saw our error in suffering 
Mrs. Hutchinson too long. I have sent you the book here- 
with, that instead of putting it to the press, as he desireth, 
it may rather be put into the fire as I desire. But I pray 
you let him know that I have sent the book to you and after 
you have read it (which I think you said you had not done) 
it may be restored to him. I received yesterday a letter 
from my loving friend Mr. Burdett to excuse himself of the 
slander laid upon him for baptizing any ; with some high 
strains of other matter, which I have answered. This is all 
I have at present ; with due respect therefore I take leave, 
resting, Yours, 

Tho : Dudley. 
Roxbury, Dec. 11, 1638. 

P. S. I suppose the book to be rather copied out than 
contrived by Mr. Lechford, he being I think, not so good a 
Grecian and Hebretian as the author undertakes to be. 
There was one here to-day of Weymouth to buy treacle (as 
I hear) who reported that there are sixty persons sick there 
of the spotted fever except three of them of the small-pox. 
If this be true the plague is begun in the camp for this sin 
of people. 1 

Dudley, in a letter to Winthrop, written eighteen days after 
the former one, refers again to some of the matters contained 
in his first letter : — 

1 Labeled " Brother Dudley about Mr. Lechford's Book." (Proc. 
Mass. Hist. Soc, 1855-58, 311, 312.) 



238 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxn 

To the Right Worshipful John Winthrop, Esqr., 

Governor at Boston. 

Sir, — I thank you for your gammon of bacon, the out- 
sides whereof I was forced to cut off, it smelled so restily of 
the old Saxon reesings. I meant in my censure of your last 
book no resurrection of unreasonable individuals, but a 
continuance of those, or some of them which should be alive 
at the consummation, which I think is the same with your 
species. The breaking open of your letters was presump- 
tuous if not hostile. For Mr. Gibbins, I think I shall satisfy 
you at my next coming to Boston. For Mr. Lechford and 
his book you say nothing, and I have since heard that the 
worst opinion in his book (which I think I shall prove to 
be heresy) is taken up by others. Now seeing that this is 
the way Satan invades us by (viz. new opinions and here- 
sies), it behooves us to be the more vigilant and to stir up 
our zeals and stop breaches at the beginning least forbear- 
ance hurt us as it did before. I desire to see the letter 
Capt. Underhill wrote to Mr. Cotton. I take leave, resting 
ready to do your service. 

Tho : Dudley. 

Dec. 29: 1638. 1 

This Thomas Lechford named in the letters was the first 
lawyer who practiced in New England, and returned under 
many difficulties to England in 1641, dissatisfied with his 
experience in America. We have previously noticed the dis- 
like of the Massachusetts Puritans for lawyers. Lechford 
published in 1642, in London, " Plaine Dealing; or, Newes 
from New England." And it is no doubt this book that he 
presented to Dudley in manuscript for his examination and 
approval. Dudley was more critical and solicitous respect- 
ing heresy, evidently, than Lechford had supposed. Neither 
was he willing to pass upon a matter so vital to the public 
interest without consulting his associate Winthrop. This 
course was not agreeable to Lechford, who wrote to Hugh 

1 Indorsed by Governor Winthrop, " My Brother Dudley." (Mass. 
Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, vii. 100, in.) 



1639] DUDLEY AND LECHFORD'S BOOK 239 

Peters in January, 1639, "After the court here ended I de- 
livered (my book) of prophesie to Mr. Deputy [meaning 
Dudley] to advise thereof as a private friend, as a godly 
man, and a member of the church, whether it were fit to be 
published. The next news I had was, that at first dash he 
accused me of heresy, and wrote to Mr. Governor that my 
book was fitter to be burned." It is very evident from Dud- 
ley's letter first above quoted, that he did not regard the 
placing of the book in his hands as matter of personal con- 
fidence. He undoubtedly thought that he was allowed to 
inspect Lechford's book, because he would not otherwise 
have said in his letter, " But I pray you let him know that I 
have sent the book to you, that after you have read it . . . 
it may be restored to him." It seems very certain that 
Dudley understood that Lechford desired the opinion of per- 
sons in influence and authority respecting his book, and 
therefore Dudley passed it over in good faith into the hands 
of the most important person in the colony, providing at 
the same time for its safe return, after examination, to Lech- 
ford. 

It was certainly greatly to the credit of Dudley that he 
detected so soon the heresy of Lechford, which denied the 
right of the people to elect their own rulers, and also the 
validity of any non-Episcopal ordination. He thus became 
prominent in detecting that which was soon apparent to all 
in authority. We find in a sketch of J. H. Trumbull's " Life 
of Lechford," page 25, the following statement : " That he 
[Lechford] should have been permitted, for two years and 
a half, to hold his course unchecked, and that his uncon- 
cealed and somewhat aggressive dissent should have so long 
escaped censure, proves that the founders of Massachusetts 
were not incapable of the exercise of toleration, even though 
they might not give it a place among the virtues." 

Dudley says, it will be remembered, in the above letter, 
" I hear that he also favoreth Mr. Lenthall and hath so ex- 
pressed himself." Winthrop says, ''This man Lenthall was 
found to have drank in some of Mrs. Hutchinson's opin- 



240 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxn 

ions," whereupon he was required by the Court to make a 
recantation at Weymouth. 1 

George Burdett, mentioned in one of the letters quoted, 
found his way to Dover, N. H., after he had preached at 
Salem, but he was discovered at last to be a spy in the ser- 
vice of Archbishop Laud. He was an enemy to the Puri- 
tans, and had a contention at Dover with Knollys, the Anti- 
nomian. He was so imprudent in a letter to Winthrop that 
he would have been brought to Boston to answer for con- 
tempt, but for the influence of Dudley, who was fearful that 
if he became hostile to Massachusetts he might do greater 
injury to her interests in England. For Winthrop says, "As 
the governor [Winthrop] says he was purposed to summon 
him [Burdett] to appear at our Court to answer his contempt, 
but, advising with the deputy [Dudley] about it, he was 
dissuaded from it, the rather for that, if he should suffer him 
this cause it would ingratiate him more with the Archbishop 
(with whom he had intelligence, etc.), but his counsel was 
rather to undermine him by making him thoroughly known," 
etc. 

It is difficult to understand why Dudley speaks of Burdett 
in such terms of affection, calling him " My loving friend, 
Mr. Burdett." The most natural explanation would seem 
to be that he had not then discovered that he was an enemy 
of the colony and an English spy in the employ of Arch- 
bishop Laud. Burdett had evidently, somewhere and some- 
how, won the confidence of Dudley, and misled him for a 
while, until his eyes were opened to the true nature of the 
man and his mission. 

But this circumstance is greatly to our advantage, for it 
furnishes an opportunity for us to observe the method and 
action of Dudley when required to take responsibility in a 
crisis. His reserve, coolness, and forethought, when even 
Winthrop was impassioned, was truly admirable. He ad- 
vised to wait patiently, and thus undermine the enemy slowly 
and surely, step by step. The two great leaders are thus 
1 Winthrop, i. 288 ; Mass. Col. Rec, i. 254. 



1637] DUDLEY AND HERESY 241 

brought before us side by side in an important exigency, 
that we may see and compare them, and form our own opin- 
ions as to which exhibited the greater qualities, and their 
methods. 

The following letter of Sir Richard Saltonstall to the Rev. 
Mr. Wilson and the Rev. Mr. Cotton throws further light 
upon the Christian firmness of Dudley in matters of heresy. 
He says : — 

" When I was in Holland about the beginning of the wars, 
I remember some Christians there, that then had serious 
thought of planting in New England, desired me to write to 
the governor thereof to know if those that differ from you 
in opinion, yet holding the same foundation in religion as 
Anabaptists, Seekers, Antinomians, and the like, might be 
permitted to live among you, to which I received the short 
answer from your then governor Mr. Dudley, ' God forbid 
(said he) our love for the truth should be grown so cold that 
we should tolerate errors,' and when (for satisfaction of my- 
self and others) I desired to know your grounds, he referred 
me to the books written here between the Presbyterians and 
Independents, which if that had been sufficient, I need not 
have sent so far to understand the reasons of your practice. 
I hope you do not assume to yourselves infallibility of judg- 
ment, when the most learned of the Apostles confesseth that 
he knew but in part, and saw but darkly as through a glass, 
etc. 

" Your truly and most affectionate friend in the nearest 
union, 

" Ric : Saltonstall. 

" For my Reverend and worthily much esteemed friends, 
Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson, preachers to the church 
which is at Boston in New England." 

The next matter on the record which attracts attention is 
the first appearance, possibly, of American hotel-keeping, 
which is naturally unique and curious. Sumptuary laws are 
at best rigid, and not altogether agreeable reading, for at 



242 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxii 

every turn they excite our commiseration for those excellent 
people who had so few of the comforts and almost none of 
the luxuries of life. 

" And whereas complaint hath been also made that divers 
poor people, who would willingly content themselves with 
mean diet, are forced to take such diet as is tendered them at 
twelve pence the meal or more, it is now ordered that every 
keeper of such inn or common victualing house shall sell 
and allow unto every of their guests such victual as they 
call for, and not force them to take more or other than they 
desire, be it never so mean and small in quantity, and shall 
afford the same and all other diet at reasonable prices, upon 
pain of such fine as the Court shall inflict according to the 
measure and quantity of the offense." 1 

As we have already noticed, the college is ordered to be 
at Newtown by the General Court, November 15, 1637, an ^ 
on the 20th day of the same month the Court appointed a. 
committee " to take order " for a college at Newtown. 2 

" For the college, the governor, Mr. Winthrop, the deputy, 
Mr. Dudley, the treasurer, Mr. Bellingham, Mr. Humfrey, 
Mr. Herlakenden, Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Wilson, 
Mr. Davenport, Mr. Wells, Mr. Shepard, and Mr. Peters, 
these, or the greater part of them, whereof Mr. Winthrop, 
Mr. Dudley, or Mr. Bellingham, to be always one to take 
order for a college at Newtown." 3 

We have quoted this entire act, to show how conspicuous 
the three men, Winthrop, Dudley, and Bellingham, were at 
the inception of this institution. Our special interest is at 
present centred in Dudley, one of the three, and the peer 
of either of them in all-round practical knowledge and in- 
formation. 

President Josiah Quincy tells us that " the year ensuing 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 214. 

2 "To take order" is an obsolete phrase, and means to take "suit- 
able action in view of some particular result or end ; care preparations ; 
measures." (Century Diet., 4143.) 

3 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 217. 



1 637] DUDLEY FAMILY AND HARVARD COLLEGE 243 

(1637), the General Court appointed twelve of the most emi- 
nent men of the colony to take order for a college at New- 
town, all of them names dear to New England, on account 
of their sacrifices, their sufferings and virtues." While these 
men were contemplating the laying of the foundation of the 
college, John Harvard died, in 1638, and was found to have 
bequeathed one half of his whole property, and his entire 
library to the institution. 

We have not found that this committee was changed until 
1642, and it is therefore safe to conclude that the whole gov- 
ernment and construction of the college was in their care 
until that date. The college was chartered in 1642, and again 
received a new charter in 1650, with the signature of Gov- 
ernor Thomas Dudley. " A copy of the original, engrossed 
on parchment, under the signature of Governor Dudley, with 
the colony seal appendant, is in the custody of the President 
and Fellows of Harvard College." 1 Governor Dudley did 
not cease to be on the Board of Overseers of the college 
during nearly sixteen years, from that 20th day of Novem- 
ber, 1637, until his death. 

His family, also, was destined later to serve the college in 
time of special need. It appears that Governor Joseph Dud- 
ley, the son of Governor Thomas Dudley, "who held be- 
tween May and December, in the year 1686 [just before the 
arrival of Governor Andros], the commission of president of 
the colony, and William Stoughton, who held during the 
same time that of deputy president, availed themselves of 
their transitory power to place the college on a basis adapted 
to the uncertainty which hung over its destinies, in common 
with those of the colony," at that critical period. President 
Josiah Quincy said, " Of all the statesmen who have been 
instrumental in promoting the interests of Harvard College, 
Joseph Dudley was most influential in giving its constitution 
a permanent character." 

There had for a long time been a desire for a new charter 
for the college from the crown, since the charter of the 
1 Josiah Quincy's Hist, of Harv. Univ., i. 591. 



244 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxii 

colony had been annulled. It did not seem possible of attain- 
ment, but Governor Joseph Dudley, with a bold movement, 
secured that which served as a substitute. 

He furnished at once "the long-sought charter for the 
college, and fulfilled the utmost desire of his friends, in a 
form not requiring the sanction of the crown, and deriving 
all its efficacy from the authority of the provincial legislature. 
. . . This measure had, probably, its origin in the depths of 
Dudley's own mind, and is marked with boldness and saga- 
city eminently characteristic of him. It is hardly probable 
that any other person would have ventured to propose a 
course so full of responsibility." 

He, in 1707, "in defiance of all recognized principles, had 
the boldness to consent to revive the college charter of 1650 
[the very charter his honored father, Thomas Dudley, had 
signed fifty-seven years before], and thus established a char- 
ter, contrary to the will of the British sovereign. . . . He 
took the great responsibility of a dangerous policy, and he 
deserves all the credit of its success. 

" It is also certain, that the measure received the almost 
universal approbation of the people of Massachusetts ; that 
the act of 1650, thus revived by a legislative resolve, has 
been ever since recognized as the charter of the college ; that, 
during the continuance of the colonial relation, it received 
the uniform support of judicial decision and legislative sanc- 
tion ; and that, on the adoption of the state Constitution, in 
1780, it was ratified and confirmed. Thus, by virtue of uni- 
form judicial construction, successive legislative sanction, 
and ultimate constitutional ratification, the charter of 1650 
[signed by Thomas Dudley] has been established on a firm 
and now incontrovertible basis." 1 

It is a great pleasure to follow thus the united services of 
these two governors throughout the charter life of the col- 
lege to the present day. Governor Joseph Dudley was a 
courtier and a politician very different in character from his 
honored father. He has been the subject of bitter and often 
1 Josiah Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ., i. 158-161. 



1 637] DUDLEY FAMILY AND HARVARD COLLEGE 245 

undeserved denunciation. He was an Episcopalian who did 
not always please the Mathers, and in his sworn duty to the 
mother country did not always act in a manner to satisfy the 
selfish, and possibly sometimes the legitimate, wishes of his 
countrymen in America. The colonial governors, if native- 
born Americans, certainly if not Puritans in religion, were 
at best between two fires, and are entitled to some considera- 
tion. It is only fair to say of Joseph Dudley that certain of 
* his contemporaries in America eulogized both his character 
and services in the strongest terms, while others, then and 
since, have been equally free in censuring him. It is the 
reward of politics. He is said to have been the first native- 
born American who ever sat as a member in the British Par- 
liament. 

The college had yet one more benefactor in this family in 
Judge Paul Dudley, the son of Governor Joseph Dudley, and 
grandson of Governor Thomas Dudley. He was attorney- 
general of Massachusetts sixteen years ; a judge of the supe- 
rior court, the highest in the colony, twenty-seven years, and 
chief justice of the same court six years, thus making in all 
a round judicial service of forty-nine years, almost half of the 
century. He founded the Dudleian lectures by a bequest of 
one hundred pounds to the college, which donation has in 
one important direction quite outgrown its usefulness. 

We are not informed that Governor Thomas Dudley made 
any donations whatever to the college. And many persons 
have no doubt thought, from what has been said and written 
about him, that it was not in his nature to have given 
money. This is a gross mistake, unfair to his life work of 
Christian philanthropy and self-sacrifice. He gave his val- 
uable services. 

Cotton Mather, who was not more fond of the Dudley 
family than Christian obligation required, said of him, " That 
which crowned all was his sincere piety, exact justice in his 
dealings, hospitality to strangers, and liberality to the poor." 1 

Dudley's dominant thought appears in his letter to the 
1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 221. 



246 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxii 

Countess of Lincoln. "If any come hither to plant for 
worldly ends, that can well live at home he commits an error, 
of which he will soon repent him, but if for spiritual, and 
that no particular obstacle hinder his removal, he may find 
here what may well content him. ... If any godly men, 
out of religious ends, will come over to help us in the good 
work we are about, I think they cannot dispose of themselves 
nor of their estates more to God's glory and the furtherance 
of their own reckoning." Lowell has said, "There never was 
a colony, save this, that went forth, not to seek gold, but 
God." 

This is a picture of his own self-sacrificing missionary 
enterprise across the sea, leaving a life of comfort and luxury 
to do good. 

We must not permit Winthrop's charge, in a quarrel about 
letting grain on shares, or the eulogistic poetry quoted by 
Governor Belcher, " A bargain is a bargain," to be wrested 
from their original purpose to convince us that Dudley was a 
hard and penurious man. Morton says, in " New England's 
Memorial," " His love to the people was evident in serving 
them in a public capacity many years at his own cost, and 
that as a nursing father to the churches of Christ." 

He was thrifty, but he was also honest and just. He did 
not publish his deeds of charity. He concealed them, as he 
did his ancestry and himself. We have no wish to give him 
credit for donations to the college which were not made, but 
knowing how little he sought the applause of men, we can- 
not fail to remember that men contributed to it who were 
unwilling to have their names recorded. Mather tells us, 
" But as I find one article to run thus, a gentleman not will- 
ing his name should be put upon record, gave 50^" ; thus I 
am so willing to believe that most of those good men that 
are mentioned were content with a record of their good deeds 
in the book of God's remembrance," that he does not name 
them. 1 

President Quincy says that in making donations to the 
1 Mather's Magnalia, ii. bk. iv § 3. 



1637] LIBERALITY OF DUDLEY 247 

college, " the magistrates caught the spirit, and led the way 
by a subscription among themselves of two hundred pounds, 
in books for the library. The comparatively wealthy [of 
whom Mr. Dudley was one] followed with gifts of twenty 
and thirty pounds. The needy multitude succeeded, like the 
widow of old, casting their mites into the treasury." 

We shall have occasion hereafter to witness the liberality 
of Dudley, who was the most prominent founder in 1645-46 
of the Roxbury Latin School. His hand appears indeed in 
every good work, in founding churches, schools, wholesome 
laws, the commonwealth, and the union of the colonies. 

His daughter, Mrs. Bradstreet, knew her father well, and 
if we regard her testimony with less confidence because of 
her filial affection, still she was honest, and her simple de- 
clarations are convincing. She writes : — 

" High thoughts he gave no harbor in his heart, 
Nor honors puffed him up, when he had part : 
Those titles loath'd, which some too much do love 
For truly his ambition lay above. 
His humble mind so loved humility, 
He left it to his race for legacy : 
And oft and oft, with speeches mild and wise, 
Gave his in charge, that jewel rich to prize. 
No ostentation seen in all his ways, 
As in the mean ones, of our foolish days, 
Which all they have, and more still set to view, 
Their greatness may be judged by what they shew. 
His thoughts were more sublime, his actions wise, 
Such vanities he justly did despise." l 

The jewels of Fair Harvard, like those of Cornelia, the 
brave mother of the Gracchi, are her illustrious children, 
some of the noblest of whom have descended from Thomas 
Dudley. 

1 The Works of Anne Bradstreet, ed. by J. H. Ellis, 366. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Law-building is a matter of the greatest human interest, 
not only because it demands the highest qualities of intel- 
lectual endowment and knowledge of social order, but, what 
is of more interest in general, the laws created are supposed 
to gather into themselves the regular steps of advance in 
human thought and progress, and are therefore a concen- 
trated history of our race during the periods included by 
them. The laws of this colony are of especial interest, be- 
cause they were made at the beginning of political and social 
life unlike anything in the previous history of the world. 
The General Court, on the 12th day of March, 1638, enacted 
as follows : " For the well ordering of these plantations, 
now in the beginning thereof, it having been found by the 
little time of experience we have had here, that the want of 
written laws has put the Court into many doubts, and much 
trouble in many particular cases, this Court hath therefore 
ordered that the freemen of every town (or some part thereof 
chosen by the rest) within this jurisdiction shall assemble 
together in their several towns, and collect the heads of such 
necessary and fundamental laws as may be suitable to the 
times and places where God by his Providence hath cast us, 
and the heads of such laws to deliver in writing to the gov- 
ernor, for the time being, before the fifth day of the fourth 
month, called June next, to the intent that the same gov- 
ernor, together with the rest of the Standing Council [that 
is, Dudley and Endicott] and Mr. Richard Bellingham, Esq., 
Mr. Bulkley, Mr. Philips, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Shepard, eld- 
ers of several churches, Mr. Nathaniel Ward, Mr. William 
Spencer, and Mr. William Hawthorne, or the major part of 
them, may, upon the survey of such heads of laws, make a 



1638] GOOD GOVERNMENT IN THE COLONY 249 

compendious abridgment of the same by the General Court 
in autumn next, adding yet to the same or detracting there- 
from what in their wisdom shall seem meet, that so the 
whole work being perfected to the best of their skill, it may 
be presented to the General Court for confirmation or rejec- 
tion as the Court shall adjudge. 

" And it is also ordered, that the said persons shall survey 
all the laws and orders already made, and reduce them into 
as few heads as they may, and present them unto the General 
Court for approbation or refusal, as aforesaid." * 

In taking a general survey of the condition of the colony, 
resulting from all of its action, in repression and otherwise, 
we are forced to admit that its course in the matter of good 
government, and its suppression of intruders included, had 
the effect to draw emigrants, for three thousand settlers 
were attracted ; no other colony had anything like such 
prosperity. This seeming public commendation goes far to 
vindicate the wisdom and political sagacity of the Puritans 
of Massachusetts, if the growth and magnitude of a colony 
are the surest indications of successful planting, as they are 
usually regarded. No doubt the great increase in popula- 
tion was due very much to the disturbed political and reli- 
gious forces in England ; but when the unhappy people 
looked across the sea for an asylum, they evidently regarded 
Massachusetts as the land of strong and safe government, 
the abode of law and order, the one spot in all the world 
where English scholars, who had lost confidence in their own 
institutions and rulers, were beginning to rally and to experi- 
ment on virgin soil, with new ideals of government. 

It was in fact the inauguration of a new era of liberty in 
the world. Mather informs us that " It was for a matter of 
twelve years together, that persons of all ranks, well affected 
unto church reformation, kept sometimes dropping, and some- 
times flocking unto New England, though some that were 
coming into New England were not suffered to do so. . . . 
Among those bound for New England, that were so stopt, 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 222. 



250 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiii 

there were especially three famous persons, whom I suppose 
their adversaries would not have so studiously detained at 
home, if they had foreseen events ; those were Oliver Crom- 
well and Mr. Hampden, 1 and Sir Arthur Haselrig." 2 

Mr. James Grahame, in his history of the United States, 
adds the name of Pym to this roll of notable persons. It 
will always afford a very interesting and striking, but useless 
subject for human speculation, how the course of events in 
both England and America would have turned, if those 
master minds of the English commonwealth had really emi- 
grated and found here useful occupation in subduing forests 
and Christianizing savages. James Russell Lowell has given 
to us in a beautiful poem the supposed thoughts of these 
two men, Hampden and Cromwell, as they were deeply con- 
sidering whether the cause of human freedom would be most 
served by their emigration to America or by their remaining 
to aid the coming revolution in England. 

" The fate of England and of freedom once 
Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man : 
One step of his, and the great dial-hand, 
That marks the destined progress of the world 
In the eternal round from wisdom on 
To higher wisdom, had been made to pause 
A hundred years. That step he did not take, — 
He knew not why, nor we, but only God, — 
And lived to make his simple oaken chair 
More terrible and grandly beautiful, 
More full of majesty than any throne, 
Before or after, of a British king." 8 

It is important to mention in this connection that modern 
investigators, who seem determined upon destroying the very 
fabric of history itself, have not overlooked this beautiful 
story, but have found occasion to doubt it altogether. 

1 Hampden, Winthrop, and Dudley were the executors of the will of 
Isaac Johnson, also of one before the last one, a fact which suggests 
their intimate relations. (Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d series, viii. 244 ; Hutch- 
inson, i. 16.) 

2 Mather's Magnalia, i. bk. i. § 7, p. 73. 

8 Lowell's " A Glance Behind the Curtain," Poems, Household ed., 49. 



1638] THE TWO BROTHERS 251 

Winthrop was chosen governor and Dudley deputy gov- 
ernor in May, 1638. This was no doubt an era of excellent 
good feeling ; popular enthusiasm and approval abounded, 
for the Court at that very session enacted as follows : " It is 
ordered, by this present Court, that John Winthrop, Esq., 
the present governor, shall have twelve hundred acres of 
land, whereof one thousand was formerly granted him, and 
Thomas Dudley, Esq., the deputy governor, his one thou- 
sand acres granted to him by a former Court, both of them 
about six miles from Concord, northward ; the said governor 
to have his twelve hundred acres on the southerly side of 
two great stones, standing near together, close by the river 
side that comes from Concord, and the deputy governor to 
have his thousand acres on the northerly side of the said 
two great stones, (which stones were lately named the Two 
Brothers)." l 

Those very stones remain there in the town of Bedford, 
little changed, and the Bedford Historical Society, in 1894, 
cut in large letters the name of Winthrop in the stone which 
was, in 1638, next to his land, and in the same manner the 
name of Dudley in the other stone, with the same date, 
1638, and thus Winthrop and Dudley here confront each 
other. 2 This society, which has placed the inscriptions on 
these ancient landmarks, is justly entitled to public grati- 
tude. This spot is of deeper interest possibly than we at 
first suspect. Winthrop has left in his Journal the follow- 
ing : " The governor [Winthrop] and deputy [Dudley] went 
to Concord [April 24, 1638] to view some land for farms, 
and, going down the river about four miles, they made choice 
of a place for one thousand acres for each of them. They 
offered each other the first choice, but because the deputy's 
was first granted, and himself had store of land already, the 
governor yielded him the choice. So, at the place where 
the deputy's land was to begin, there were two great stones, 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 229. 

2 For an account of the Two Brothers, see Henry A. Hazen's 
Hist, of Billerica, 4, 5, 10. 



252 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiii 

which they called the ' Two Brothers,' in remembrance that 
they were brothers by their children's marriage, and did so 
brotherly agree, and for that a little creek near those stones 
was to part their lands." * 

The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop has written his own grace- 
ful and beautiful impression of this event. " Certainly it 
was a felicitous coincidence that Concord should have been 
the scene of this charming exhibition of mutual concession 
and fraternal love. Since the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius, 
which Shakspeare has rendered so memorable in his immor- 
tal dialogue, it would be difficult to find one more vividly 
described or more happily ended. Who would undertake to 
reopen the record in order to decide who was right and who 
was wrong in such a disagreement ?. Let it stand, without 
mutilation and without commentary, as a beautiful illustra- 
tion of the manner in which two of the fathers of New 
England conducted the controversies which sometimes 
sprung up among them. There were no challenges to per- 
sonal combat. ' They were angry but sinned not.' . . . 
The contentious statesmen of modern times may well take 
an example from this early chapter of New England history, 
and this original record of New England controversy." 2 

A lovely scene is spread out before you, as you stand be- 
side the "Two Brothers," and look up and down the Con- 
cord River. 3 Far up, the river is obstructed by a beautiful 

1 Winthrop, i. *264- 

2 R. C. Winthrop's Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. ioi, 102. 

3 Nathaniel Hawthorne knew this river well and loved it dearly. He 
has left to us the following description of it in one of his own classic 
pictures : " We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called 
the Concord, the river of peace and quietness ; for it is certainly the 
most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered imperceptibly 
towards its eternity — the sea. Positively, I had lived three weeks 
beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which way the 
current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a north- 
western breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the 
incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of 
becoming the slave of human ingenuity as is the fate of so many a wild, 
free mountain torrent. ... It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing 



1638} LABOR, WAGES, AND PRICES 253 

bridge with many arches, while below, after a long sweep by 
the winding of its course it disappears. Across the stream 
the view stretches away over boundless meadows to the 
broken lines of distant hills. 

One hundred and thirty years subsequent to this memora- 
ble visit of the two most eminent planters of New England, 
but a few miles nearer towards the source of this stream, 

" The embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

Labor, wages, and prices perplexed and embarrassed the 
colony, as in modern life they vex society, and as during long 
ages to come they are destined to disturb the social life of 
nations. " Whereas there hath been divers complaints made 
concerning oppression in wages, in prices of commodities, in 
smith's work, in excessive prices for the work of drafts [mov- 
ing loads by drawing], and teams and the like, to the great 
dishonor of God, the scandal of the gospel and the grief of 
divers of God's people, both here in this land and in the 
land of our nativity, the Court taking into consideration, hath 
ordered it, that it shall be duly considered by Mr. Endicott 
[and others constituting a committee of about thirty per- 
sons], whom the Court hath desired in that particular, and 
to bring into the next General Court their thoughts, for the 
remedying of the same." 1 

Captain Robert Keayne, who was the first commander of 
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery of Boston, and whose 
unworthy son, Benjamin, was the husband of Dudley's daugh- 
ter Sarah, was disciplined both by church and state for sell- 
ing his merchandise at excessive profits. He left a will, 
very many pages of which are devoted to the proper vindica- 

the long meadow grass, and bathes the overhanging boughs of elder 
bushes and willows or the roots of elms, and ash trees and clumps of 
maples. Flags and rushes grow along its plashy shores ; the yellow 
water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves on the margin ; and the fragrant 
white pond-lily abounds." (Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse, 
chap. i. 14.) 
1 March 12, 1638. Mass. Col. Rec, i. 223. 



254 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxni 

tion of himself and his character, appealing to the serious 
and unbiased reflections of mankind. 

Dudley and Captain Keayne were both military men, for 
which reason, and because of the intermarriage of their chil- 
dren, we may confidently suppose them to have been friends, 
at any rate until the subsequent unhappiness of their chil- 
dren ; and we have no evidence that their friendship was not 
well-established and permanent to the end of life. 

The General Court, in June, 1639, declared the now famous 
Council for Life to have no power of judicature whatever, 
nor in the magistracy, and to be in fact ornamental only. 1 

The General Court gave its attention in September of this 
year, on the one hand to superfluity and exuberance in dress, 
and on the other hand to its improper contraction and to 
its reduction. It is ordered that tailors are not to " set lace 
or points upon any garment. And that hereafter no garment 
shall be made with short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of 
the arm may be discovered . . . sleeves not to be more than 
an ell in the widest place," and more about immoderate great 
sleeves, knots of ribbon, broad shoulder bands, double ruf- 
fles and cuffs. 

It would be a great satisfaction to us to know what part 
Dudley took in all this quaint and curious legislation. We 
know that he was present and took a share at all the meet- 
ings whose records have claimed our attention, but whether 
he voted with the majority in favor of sumptuary laws, or 
was hopelessly lost with the minority, we cannot tell. Since, 
however, he was so popular, and retained the places of first 
importance among the people so many years, it is reasonable 
to conclude that in general he was with the majority, and 
that his personal influence went as far as that of any one in 
directing on which side the majority would be found, upon 
every question before the Court. This in any event matters 
but little ; the decision arrived at included the majority and 
minority ; all members are therefore equally entitled to the 
credit or dishonor of each and every act. No one can go 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 264. 



1639] IMPROVED ROADS AND INTERCOURSE 255 

behind the curtain to discover individual action, and to fix 
individual responsibility ; all is merged in the final recorded 
statute or judgment. 

They ordered at this September Court that records of the 
doings of the Court should be carefully kept, also of probate 
matters, marriages, births, deaths, and of houses and lands. 

Improved roads and the means of cheap, easy, and rapid 
transit and communication between one part of a state and 
the other have at least, since the construction of the wonder- 
ful ancient Roman roads, been little by little winning the 
attention and confidence of men. No effort now is required 
to convince intelligent people that if intercourse and com- 
merce through the agencies of the air, water, steam, electri- 
city, and horse-power were extinguished, a very short period 
would show a rapid relapse towards that night of barbarism 
from which we have slowly emerged. When the General 
Court, therefore, at this session ordered " that all highways 
shall be laid out before the next meetings of the Court, so as 
may be with most ease and safety for travelers," and made 
provision therefor, it had moved in the right direction to- 
wards the development of the colony and country. It would 
need centuries of vigorous labor to complete only a portion 
of this herculean undertaking, but then and there the work 
of the Titans began, and it required only the improved skill 
and abounding energy of the coming generations of intelli- 
gent freemen, assisted, indeed, by foreign labor and capital, 
to overlay the continent with highways of steel. 

Another material change was made this year in the Court, 
transferring important judicial powers from the General 
Court to the Court of Assistants ; county courts were also 
created, and an essential advance made towards the system 
which has prevailed ever since. 1 

We have previously noticed the founding of Harvard Col- 
lege and the connection of Dudley with it, but the public 
system of education of the whole people was very funda- 

1 Washburn's Judicial Hist, of Mass., 27, 31 ; Pub. Narr. Club, ii. 
184. 



256 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxm 

mental in the formation of our government, and the source 
from which it was principally derived was the college, cou- 
pled with the watchful, intelligent purpose of the founders. 
Educated men from Oxford and Cambridge, ministers and 
others, went into the wilderness, each bearing a torch, carry- 
ing the gospel and the saving light of learning to the remot- 
est and ever-extending boundaries of the colony. This was 
the seed-sowing for a government of the people, in which 
sovereign people must be educated in virtue, and trained in 
everything which contributes to true nobility of character. 
The common school was produced by spread of learning 
from the college to the people, and therefore we are not to 
regard the university as the product of the common schools, 
but as being itself in a large degree the source and fountain 
of such schools in our system. This thought ought very 
much to awaken our appreciation of the foresight and saga- 
city of the fathers of New England, who took the first weld- 
ing heat on our institutions, and began by founding a college. 

The printing press, moreover, came to Cambridge in 1639, 
by far the most powerful engine in the general distribution 
of knowledge. Here they were together, the college and 
the press, on the extreme eastern shore of the continent, 
beginning to force "westward the course" of democratic 
republican empire. 

"The earliest effort of the Cambridge press, apparently, 
was to print in 1639 the oath required from all freemen. In 
the next year the so-called Bay Psalm-Book was printed. . . . 
The Almanac, which from 1639 was an annual production, 
was as yet nothing more than a bare calendar, with blank 
spaces to serve as a diary. With the next generation it took 
higher rank, and may in fact be looked on as the earliest form 
of light literature recognized in New England." 1 

This year Dudley changed his residence to Roxbury, 
which was his home during the remainder of his life. Cot- 
ton Mather gives the reasons for this change, as follows : 
" The country soon found a need of his wisdom to help to 
1 Doyle's The English in America, ii. 119, 120. 



1638] DUDLEY'S LETTER TO COTTON 257 

strengthen them in that storm of trouble that began to arise 
immediately after his removal [to Ipswich in 1635], so as 
the necessity of the government and importunity of friends, 
enforced him to return back two or three years after his 
going away. The town he returned unto was called Rox- 
bury, within two miles of Boston, where he was near at hand 
to be counseled or advised with in any exigency ; divers of 
which did presently appear, after his return ; of him it was 
verified what the poet said, ' Virtutem presentem odimus, 
sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invitis.' " l 

The following letter of Thomas Dudley to Rev. John Cot- 
ton shows what perplexing questions disturbed the souls of 
the founders : — 

Reverend Sir, — I appointed my brother Dennison, the 
bearer hereof, to have been with me at the Court at Boston, 
about what I now write, but it fell out otherwise. The up- 
rightness I perceive to be in him stirreth me up to desire 
his reconciliation to the Church, and one thing that hin- 
dereth is his opinion about the first evidence : He granteth 
that the Spirit can give no first evidence without it work 
grace, and I assent that there can be no grace until the 
Spirit work it, which agreeth with what passed at my house 
between yourself and me : therein I perceive no difference 
between them. But when these premises are drawn to a 
conclusion, then he draws back and affirmeth that yet the 
Spirit gives the first evidence without the sight of grace. 

If two things go together neither of which is first or last, 
and if the Spirit work not grace, that Spirit is delusory, then 
I cannot know it to be the Spirit of God until I see it hath 
wrought them even, for evidence (about which the question 
is) implieth sight within the signification and ordinary use of 
the word : I am not able to see but that he contradicteth 
himself. 

If you so conceive I pray you, Sir, help him. This I would 

1 See Horace, bk. Hi. ode 24; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan. 1870, 
219, 220. 



258 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxm 

this day have spoken to you if I had not been hindered : you 

see how bad my page is, and it is time for the bearer to be 

gone towards Boston. 

I pray you bear with hasty, page, &c. I shall understand 

by my Bro : Dennison at his return without your trouble 

of writing what you say. I therefore forbear your further 

trouble, resting — 

Your old unprofitable friend, 

Tho : Dudley. 
Roxbury the 21 of the i Month 1638. 1 

We are quite certain that the Brother Dennison mentioned 
in this letter was William Dennison, constable of Roxbury, 
whose son, Daniel Dennison, had married Dudley's daughter, 
Patience. We know that it was the custom to call each 
other brothers when their children intermarried. Dennison 
was disarmed with other Hutchinsonians, November 20, 
i637, 2 and in 1639, June 4, "had liberty till the next Court." 
This explains Dudley's interest in Dennison. The letter 
above was written while Dennison was disarmed ; it is about 
grace and other Antinomian doctrine, and bears its own 
evidence of the cause which produced it. The beautiful 
altruism of Dudley is manifested in the concluding lines of 
the letter. 

It has also been said that Dudley " removed to Roxbury 
to place himself under the ministration of Eliot," the apostle 
to the Indians ; their houses were on opposite sides of the 
same street, and, also, under the ministration of Mr. Weld, 
they were associated in the same church. "The Dudley 
homestead, containing between five and six acres, lay be- 
tween what are now Washington and Bartlett streets, on 
the south, and Roxbury Street, on the north, extending from 
Guild Row to Putnam Street, the eastern boundary of the 

1 The original of this letter is in the Boston Public Library, Prince 
Collection, Cotton Papers, S. 21-1, ii. 15. 

The letter was written about the time that Dudley removed from 
Ipswich to Roxbury, and is for that reason inserted here. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 212. 



1639] DUDLEY'S HOME IN ROXBURY 259 

land of the First Parish. Smelt Brook was originally the 
eastern boundary of the homestead." 1 

The house and home of Dudley was on the site long occu- 
pied by the First Universalist Church ; his well is said to 
have been under it. 2 This was the house on which Dudley, 
in 1646, secured a perpetual tribute to the Roxbury Latin 
School at its foundation. 3 Drake, the historian of Roxbury, 
assures us that " in its day this was one of the best houses 
in the town. . . . And that we may be certain that during 
the entire colonial period no New England mansion enter- 
tained a larger number of visitors of distinction." Here, in 
the next year, 1640, when Dudley was governor, he well 
entertained "the brave and magnanimous Miantonomoh, the 
Sachem of Narragansett." Perhaps we ought to say, on the 
authority of the United Colonies, the treacherous Miantono- 
moh. 4 

We are admitted into the interior of this Roxbury home, 
and with lively interest pass from room to room, and are 
informed what furniture and personal effects once used by 
these excellent people were found in the various apartments, 
including two parlors, a parlor chamber, a hall chamber, 
study, and other rooms. The library attracts us in the 
study. Here, more than in any other room, we seem to 
feel the presence and the personality of " the sturdiest sup- 
port and ornament of New England," the pillar of church 
and state. The library of a person, selected by himself, 
with the means given to him to exercise his taste and choice 
from time to time, becomes in a sense the mirror of his 
mind, culture, and development. To this end, the number 
of books is far less important than the quality. A few books 
and much reflection have been the means and method of the 
giants of learning. 

1 Francis S. Drake's Town of Roxbury, 238. 

2 The church was burned a few years ago, and now small shops in 
part occupy the site. 

8 C. M. Ellis's Hist, of Roxbury, 39. 
4 Winthrop, ii. *8, *IS- 



2 6o THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiii 

The first book on his list but one is the " General His- 
tory of the Netherlands." The Netherlands, more than any- 
other country except their native land, and Geneva, had 
contributed to the Puritan ideas of liberty, education, and 
religion. This book, next to the Bible, the laws of Moses 
and dealings of the Almighty with ancient Israel, may have 
been his constant study, his morning and evening text-book 
and guide. The " Turkish History " indicated breadth and 
liberality in reading and investigation. His copy of the 
"reserved and thoughtful" Tacitus denotes his vigorous 
and classical taste, respecting which Cotton Mather has in- 
formed us. Camden's "Annals of Queen Elizabeth" would 
be of personal interest to him because he was an English- 
man ; because, also, he had been a subject during her reign, 
and had gone as a soldier to France, bearing her commis- 
sion ; besides, the book itself reflects credit on its owner, 
even if it was unreliable as to Queen Mary of Scotland, and 
too favorable to Elizabeth. Selden has declared that " Cam- 
den's 'Annals of Elizabeth' and Bacon's 'History of Henry 
VII.' are the only two Lives of the sovereigns of England 
which come up to the dignity of the subject, either in full- 
ness of matter or beauty of composition." 

The " Commentaries of the Wars of France " doubtless 
included the war in which his father died, and in which he 
himself had a part in the struggle of Henry IV. of France. 
Scotland also was dear to the Puritan heart, because Pres- 
byterianism triumphed there, both over papacy and at last 
over prelacy. George Buchanan also was unfavorable to 
Mary, Queen of Scots, but his " History of Scotland " was 
a famous book. " It cannot be denied but Buchanan was 
a man of admirable eloquence, of rare prudence, and of 
exquisite judgment ; he has written the history of Scot- 
land with such elegance and politeness that he surpasses 
all the writers of his age ; and he has even equaled the an- 
cients themselves, without excepting either Sallust or Titus 
Livius." x 

1 Teissier. 



1639] DUDLEY'S HOME IN ROXBURY 261 

As Dudley was himself a lawmaker, " An Abstract of Pe- 
nal Statutes " must have been to him a useful book ; besides, 
he was very much of a lawyer. But what was the signifi- 
cance of " Piers Plowman " in this library, a satire upon 
church and state ? It was indeed very marked. For that 
book contains, in epitome and outline, the doctrines which 
produced the Reformation, and no man of his period was 
more strongly imbued with those teachings, extended even 
to the perfection of Puritanism, than he. 

It represents a literary and political revolution in which 
the Saxon is over the Norman. And the battle won at 
Hastings was lost at Marston Moor. The victorious Saxon 
was uppermost alike in the commonwealth of England and 
in the other one of Massachusetts. One of the principal 
founders of the last, moreover, was the student who in this 
library daily and constantly sought light and wisdom upon 
his responsible work. Campbell says that "the general 
obj ect of ' Piers Plowman ' is to expose, in allegory, the 
existing abuses of society, and to inculcate the public and 
private duties both of the laity and clergy." No man in all 
the world had these things more at heart, and no man had 
therefore a better right to the perpetual companionship with 
Piers Plowman, than our honored governor. 

We find in this room, also, the writings of Calvin, Cotton, 
Rogers, and Norton ; books on history, law, theology, reli- 
gion, and education. Every one of these books has an 
essential characteristic of himself in it, and is in the library 
because of his own exceeding need. His greatness and lib- 
erality of mind are reflected in the quality of these silent 
friends and associates. 

A list of Dudley's books — there were fifty or sixty vol- 
umes inventoried at his decease — is to be found in the Suf- 
folk Probate Records, lib. ii. fol. 133 ; Hist. Gen. Reg., xii. 
335) 336 ; also Dean Dudley's Hist, of the Dudley Family, 
i. 84, 85. 

The Rev. Nathaniel Rogers wrote of Dudley : " A devourer 
of books, in himself a choice collector, a compend of sacred 



262 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxm 

history." Captain Edward Johnson says, in "Wonder- 
Working Providence," that he was "a man of sound judg- 
ment in matters of religion, and well read, bestowing much 
labor that way." * His daughter, Mrs. Bradstreet, records 
that he was " a magazine of history." 

" The old mansion was razed to the ground a few days 
after the battle of Bunker Hill, and its brick basement walls, 
facing north and east, made the angle of the work that was 
erected by the Americans. The intrenchments at this point 
included the garden, and extended to the hill east of the 
meeting-house." 2 

If the glorious old Saxon was permitted to witness that 
desolation of his home and hearth, that invincible spirit 
which inspired his life work responded, Grind it as fine as 
dust to construct bulwarks to resist the tyranny of the Brit- 
ish throne and defend American liberty ! 

It is mentioned in the " Memorial History of Boston " that 
" by far the most eminent citizen of colonial Roxbury was 
Thomas Dudley, founder of a family that furnished two 
governors, a chief justice, and a speaker of the House, all 
of whom played conspicuous parts in the affairs of New 
England." 3 

His daughter, Anne Bradstreet, distinguished, as we have 
before remarked, as the earliest poet of her sex in America, 
herself the ancestor of at least two eminent poets, is worthy 
to be named among the celebrated members of that family. 
Her volume of poetry was the first published in America. 

1 Poole's ed., 52. 

2 F. S. Drake's Roxbury, 237. 

3 Memorial Hist. Boston, i. 417. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

An extensive reorganization of the courts was made 
between 1636 and 1640. It seems that previous to that time 
the General Court had exercised the whole powers, both 
legislative and judicial, throughout the colony, and had juris- 
diction both in civil and criminal cases. But now county- 
courts were created, which have continued, with change of 
names, to the present time. The principal judicial powers 
of the General Court were transferred to the Court of Assist- 
ants. 

The county courts were held by one or more of the assist- 
ants or magistrates who resided in the county where the 
court was to sit, or by magistrates appointed from time to 
time by the General Court, aided by commissioners who were 
nominated by the freemen of the county and appointed by 
the General Court. The commissioners and magistrates 
were to be five in number ; but three of them, if one were a 
magistrate, were competent to hold a court. This court had 
no jurisdiction in matters of divorce, of life and limb, or 
banishment. 1 

Although they denied all rights of appeal to England from 
their courts, and insisted upon this with great firmness, yet 
they manifested their loyalty to the throne in many ways. 
The following is an instance of it : " Further, it is ordered 
that, in all the aforesaid places of judicature, the King's 
Majesties arms shall be erected so soon as they can be 
had." 2 

Dudley was constantly a magistrate during all this con- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 175, 169; Washburn's Judicial Hist, of Mass., 

27, 3h 37- 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 175. 



264 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

structive period of the courts, and both long before and long 
after. His handiwork is in it all. He not only executed 
the laws and interpreted them with his associates, but with 
them he also created the laws, since they were together the 
legislative body of Massachusetts. 1 

As we have already noticed, the people were anxious 
because there was no general system of laws. Although the 
laws of England were supposed to be the authority on which 
sentences were grounded, yet it was felt that far too much 
was left to the authority and discretion of the courts. For 
this reason steps were taken in 1635 as follows : "The gov- 
ernor [John Haynes], the deputy governor [Richard Bel- 
lingham], John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley, Esquires, 
are deputed by the Court to make a draught of such laws as 
they shall judge useful for the well ordering of this planta- 
tion, and to present the same to the Court." 2 

The first thing that attracts our notice in this act is the 
prominent position given to Dudley and a few other men in 
the constructive work in law-making. He is everywhere 
present at the laying of the foundation of Massachusetts 
and her laws. This is confirmed by the fact that Dudley 
was a member of a similar committee appointed in 1636, 
1637, and another in 1639, which was directed to peruse all 
those models which have been, or shall be, further presented 
to this Court, or to themselves, concerning a form of govern- 
ment and laws to be established, and shall draw them up. 
And although these committees have left little or nothing 
on record of their labors, and there are some reasons to sup- 
pose that the magistrates and elders were inclined to delay 
the framing of a code of laws, yet an advance was made, 
for at the General Court, May 13, 1640, it was voted : 
" Whereas a Breviate of Laws was formally sent forth to be 
considered by the elders of the churches and other freemen 
of the commonwealth, it is now desired that they will en- 
deavor to ripen their thoughts and counsels about the same 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 117, 118. 

2 lb., i. 147. 



1636-41] THE BODY OF LIBERTIES 265 

by the General Court in the next Eighth Month." This 
refers to Mr. Ward's Body of Liberties, which became the 
foundation of the laws of Massachusetts, not, however, until 
it had been referred to the people and improved by amend- 
ments at the General Court, in which Dudley, with others, 
took an active part. 

The reason why the magistrates had been careful about 
establishing regular statutes was the fear that their enemies 
would censure them and attempt to prove the statutes re- 
pugnant to the laws of England, and thus give them new 
cause to expect foreign interference. But if their laws were 
merely the interpretations of customs which arose step by 
step in the development of the country, they would attract 
less notice and have greater stability than theoretical codes 
of laws. 

There were two models of laws prepared : one by the Rev. 
John Cotton, supported by texts of Scripture, the other by 
the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, who was not only a clergyman 
but a lawyer who had practiced in the courts of the common 
law in England ; and since the Bible was accounted the 
supreme law of the land, it gave him a great advantage to 
have been educated thoroughly in both professions. Ward's 
model was soon found to be of greater practical use and 
advantage, and in December, 164 1, three weeks were em- 
ployed by the General Court in considering his system, 
which, with amendments, as we have said, was adopted as 
the Body of Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony. " This," 
Bancroft says, " for its liberality and comprehensiveness, 
may vie with any similar record from the days of Magna 
Charta." He says further, these laws " exhibit the truest 
picture of the principles, character, and intentions of that 
people and the best evidence of its vigor and self-defense." 

A few features of these laws are worthy of special notice, 
as indicating real progress in government and individual 
freedom. 

The representatives to the General Court were to serve 
but one year unless reelected. The Assembly could not be 



266 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

dissolved or adjourned without the will of the majority. 
Every town had power of self-government, subject to the 
public laws of the country ; power also to choose selectmen 
annually, " to order the prudential occasions of the town 
according to instructions to be given them in writing." 

This town government has since been recognized as the 
unit in our system, and as being nearer in influence and in 
control of the individual citizen than the state government 
itself. " It abolished feudal servitudes of the soil, children 
inherited under it equally the property of intestate parents, 
all officers were annually elected, jury trial was secured, 
married women were protected, fugitives from tyranny or 
oppression were welcomed, and no person was required to 
pass the limits of the plantation in an offensive war." 

The capital crimes, which were then under the English 
common law more than forty in number, were reduced to 
twelve. " There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage, 
or captivitie amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken 
in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves 
or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and 
Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel." 

Notwithstanding this provision, slavery continued within 
the commonwealth down to 1780. Rights of person and 
property were secured, no one was to be tried twice for the 
same offense, public records were open to inspection, public 
money was only to be disbursed with the consent of the 
taxpayers, cruel punishments were forbidden, judicial pro- 
ceedings were defined and the privileges and duties of 
freemen. Elisha Hutchinson says that " Mr. Bellingham 
of the magistrates and Mr. Cotton of the clergy had the 
greatest share in this work." We have seen that he was 
wrong as to Cotton ; but Bellingham undoubtedly served on 
nearly all the committees, as did Winthrop and Dudley. 1 

There may be a question in some minds why the Court 
in 1639 placed the important service of producing a code of 
laws in the hands of two persons, Cotton and Ward, instead 
1 William H. Whitmore's Mass. Col. Laws, 18. 



1639] THE DRAMA DISCARDED 267 

of a larger committee, and that the commission did not in- 
clude the prominent men, Winthrop and Dudley. As in 
the case of the former committees, the explanation undoubt- 
edly is that they recognized that small committees are more 
efficient, that the code ought to be the work of one mind, to 
give to it unity and symmetry in its proportions, and greater 
vigor, because of the individual responsibility of its author. 
Dudley was occupied fully as governor during most of the 
time when Ward was upon this work. Both he and Win- 
throp had important judicial engagements, as appear by the 
records, but these laws underwent their careful personal 
inspection during weeks of vigorous examination. 

The work of preparation was both constructive and cleri- 
cal. The elements of the laws were largely from the com- 
mon law, and they required judicious and wise selection 
and reconstruction. The people in all the towns had con- 
tributed their mites, to be used or declined by the wise mas- 
ter-builders in forming the new code. But at last it had to 
pass and receive its crowning perfection from the sanction of 
the most eminent founders of the commonwealth. 

The standard of public morals in England was at this time 
very low indeed, and it was no wonder, therefore, that the 
Puritans were disgusted, and sought in every way to exem- 
plify the purity and worth of that Christianity which they 
were professing with great sincerity. 1 

There arose at once a conflict, therefore, between the 
Puritans and state and church of England, respecting the 
immoral influence of the drama. 

In connection with the above it may be worth while to 
advert to the fact that on the 27th of September, 163 1, 
being Sunday, the play of the Midsummer Night's Dream 
was privately performed in the Bishop of Lincoln's house in 
London. 

The Puritans had influence to get this affair inquired 
into and visited with punishment, and there is something 
rather humorous in what was decreed to the performer of 
1 Palfrey's New England, i. 276 ; Barry's Mass., i. 324. 



268 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

Bottom the weaver : " We do order that Mr. Wilson, as he 
was especial plotter and contriver of this business, and did 
in such a vigorous manner act the same with an ass's head, 
shall upon Tuesday next, from six o'clock in the morning 
till six o'clock at night sit in the porter's lodge at my Lord 
Bishop's house with his feet in the stocks and attired with 
an ass's head, and a bottle of hay before him and this in- 
scription on his breast : — 

' Good people, I have played the beast, 

And brought ill things to pass ; 
I was a man, but thus have made, 
Myself a silly ass.' " 1 

We have in remarkable contrast to the gay life and drama 
in England in the Stuart period, the New England Sunday, 
even a century and a half later, in 1781 : " Sunday is ob- 
served with the utmost strictness ; all business, how impor- 
tant soever, is then totally at a stand, and the most innocent 
recreations and pleasures prohibited. Boston, that populous 
town, where at other times there is such a hurry of business, 
is on this day a mere desert ; you may walk the streets 
without meeting a single person, or if by chance you meet 
one you scarcely dare to stop and talk with him. A French- 
man that lodged with me took it into his head to play on the 
flute on Sundays for his amusement ; people upon hearing 
it were greatly enraged, collected in crowds around the 
house and would have carried matters to extremities in a 
short time with the musician, had not the landlord given 
him warning of his danger and forced him to desist. Upon 
this day of melancholy you cannot go into a house but you 
find the whole family employed in reading the Bible ; and 
indeed it is an affecting sight to see the father of a family 
surrounded by his household hearing him explain the sub- 
lime truths of this sacred volume. . . . Piety is not the only 
motive that brings the American ladies in crowds to the 
various places of worship. Deprived of all shows and pub- 

1 Halliwell's Shakspere, v. 12; The Book of Days, i. 556; Charles 
Kingsley's Plays and Puritans, 9, 10, 20. 



1639-41] COTTON'S LONG SERMONS 269 

lie diversions whatever, the church is the grand theatre 
where they attend to display their extravagance and finery. 
There they come dressed off in the finest silks, and over- 
shadowed with a profusion of the most profuse plumes." 1 

The church in New England furnished the chief attrac- 
tion and entertainment in the seventeenth century. 

Some account of the service appears in Samuel Whiting's 
" Life of the Rev. John Cotton," minister of Boston in 1632. 
Mr. Cotton "was marvelous successful in his ministry, till 
he had been twenty years there, and in that twenty years' 
space, he, on Lord's day on afternoons, went over thrice the 
whole body of divinity in a catechistical way, and gave the 
heads of his discourse to those who were young scholars, and 
others, in that town, to answer, his questions in public in 
that great congregation ; and after their answers, he opened 
those heads of divinity, and sweetly applied all to the edifica- 
tion of his people, and to such strangers as came to hear 
him. 

" In the morning on the Lord's day he preached over the 
first six chapters of the Gospel by John, the whole book of 
Ecclesiastes, the Prophecy of Zephaniah, and many other 
Scriptures ; and when the Lord's Supper was administered 
(which was usually every month), he preached upon 1 Cor. 
xi., and the whole thirtieth chapter of the 2 Chronicles, and 
some other Scriptures about the Lord's Supper. 

" On his lecture days, he preached through the whole 1st 
and 2d Epistles of John, the whole Book of Solomon's Song, 
the Parables of our Saviour, set forth in Matthew's Gospel 
to the end of chapter 13th, comparing them with Mark and 
Luke. He took much pains in private and read to sundry 
young scholars that were in his house. . . . Beside his ordi- 
nary lecture on the fifth day of the week, he preached thrice 
more on the week days, on the fourth and sixth days, early 
in the morning, and on the last day, at three of the clock in 
the afternoon. . . . He was frequent in duties of humilia- 

1 Abb6 Robin, N. B. Shurtleff's Top. and Hist. Descript. of Boston, 
69-71. 



270 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

tion and thanksgiving, in which I have known him in prayer 
and opening the word and applying it, five or six hours." 1 

Winthrop informs us that in 1639, "Mr. Hooker being 
to preach at Cambridge, the governor [Mr. Winthrop] and 
many others went to hear him (though the governor did 
very seldom go from his own congregation upon the Lord's 
day). He preached in the afternoon, and having gone on 
with much strength of voice and intention of spirit about a 
quarter of an hour, he was at stand, and told the people that 
God had deprived him both of his strength and matter, etc., 
and so went forth, and about half an hour after returned 
again, and went on to very good purpose about two hours. 

" There was at this time a very great drought . . . where- 
upon the General Court conferred with the elders, and 
agreed upon a day of humiliation about a week after. 

" The very day after the fast was appointed there fell a 
good shower, and within one week after the day of humilia- 
tion was passed, we had such store of rain and so seasonably 
as the corn revived and gave hope of a very plentiful har- 
vest." 2 

Thomas Dudley was elected governor for the second time, 
in 1640. Winthrop says : " Some trouble there had been 
in making way for his election and it was obtained with some 
difficulty, for many of the elders labored much in it, fearing 
lest the long continuance of one man in the place should 
bring it to be for life, and in time hereditary. Besides, this 
gentleman [Dudley] was a man of approved wisdom and 
godliness, and of much good service to the country, and 
therefore it was his due to share in such honor and benefit 
as the country had to bestow." 3 

This, as we have before said, is remarkable testimony to 
the worth and character of Dudley from a political rival, at 
the end of more than ten years of constant intercourse and 
most difficult business relations. Johnson says, in "Wonder- 
Working Providence," that "for to govern and rule this little 

1 Young's Chron., 424, 425. 

2 Winthrop, i. *304, *3o5. 8 lb., ii. *3- 



1640] DUDLEY OPPOSED THE MINISTERS 271 

commonwealth, was this year chosen the valiant champion 
for the advance of Christ's truth, Thomas Dudley, Esq., and 
Richard Bellingham, Esq., deputy governor." 1 

Alden Bradford, speaking in 1822 of this election, says, 
" Dudley was a man of great integrity and piety, but bigoted 
and intolerant in his theological views. . . . Winthrop was 
passed by, not from any disesteem or want of confidence of 
the people, but to relieve him of the cares of government, 
and probably in accordance with the republican maxim of 
rotation in office." 2 

In comparing the actions of these two foremost men of 
that period, it is quite evident that Winthrop made what 
effort he could to be reelected, but the popular current, for 
democratic reasons, was against him and in favor of Dudley. 
As we have said before, it was no doubt a matter of princi- 
ple with Dudley, on account of his regard for rotation in 
office, not to occupy the governor's position oftener than 
once in five years. 

Many important laws were passed during this year. About 
this time there was a struggle for power between the magis- 
trates and the ministers. Cotton preached that the priest- 
hood ought to be consulted in all civil and military affairs. 
This doctrine met the indignant opposition of Governor 
Dudley. He was glad to welcome any instruction or infor- 
mation from the ministers in the new and untried experi- 
ment of government, in which the Bible was made the 
supreme law of the land, but he was equally opposed to their 
holding any official station or any place of power in the civil 
government. And he, above all other men, stood ready to 
confront them if they undertook in any manner to cross the 
dividing line which separated the functions of the state and 
of the church. He seems to have been only anxious to do 
right, and fearless of both ecclesiastical and political influ- 
ence which might assail him or his fortunes, but always 
watchful of any influences, near or remote, which might 
inflict an injury upon Massachusetts. 

1 Chap. xvi. 138. 2 Bradford's Hist, of Mass., 45. 



272 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

It is very agreeable to note the care which they all enter- 
tained respecting their wards, the Indians, and the protection 
which they afforded to them. " It was ordered this year 
that the English settlers shall keep their cattle from destroy- 
ing the Indians' corn, and if any of their corn be damaged 
for want of fencing or herding, the town shall be liable to 
make satisfaction." 

Acts were also passed for the encouragement of the manu- 
facture of linen, woolen, and cotton cloth. The colony was 
afflicted at this time with that great common need, the want 
of money. On account of the scarcity of money, it was 
ordered that debts might be paid in corn, cattle, fish, or 
other commodities, at such rates as the General Court 
should from time to time establish, but this applied only 
to debts contracted before a certain date. 

An important law was passed " for avoiding all fraudulent 
conveyances, and that every man may know what estate or 
interest other men may have in any houses, lands, or other 
hereditaments they are to deal in." And also the appoint- 
ment of persons to take acknowledgments of deeds. 1 This 
order, together with the following order, made the next year, 
was a great advance in the law of conveyance : " It is also 
ordered, and by this Court declared, that all our lands and 
heritages shall be free from all fines and licenses upon 
alienations, and from all heriots, wardships, liveries, primer 
seisins, year day and waste, escheats, and forfeitures, upon 
the deaths of parents or ancestors, be they natural, casual, 
or judicial. All persons which are of the age of twenty-one 
years, and of right understanding and memories, whether 
excommunicate or condemned, shall have full power and 
liberty to make their wills and testaments and other lawful 
alienations of their lands and estates." 2 

Lowell says : " The men who gave every man a chance to 
become a landholder, who made the transfer of land easy, 
and put knowledge within the reach of all, have been called 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 306, 307. 

2 Body of Liberties, 1641, Nos. 10, 11, Whitmore's ed., 35. 



1640] DUDLEY AND MIANTONOMOH 273 

narrow-minded, because they were intolerant. But intolerant 
of what ? Of what they believed to be dangerous nonsense, 
which if left free would destroy the last hope of civil and 
religious freedom." 1 

One of the remarkable events in the official life of Dudley 
this year was his reception of Miantonomoh, the eminent 
sachem of Narragansett, at his home in Roxbury. This 
chief has an important place in the history of this period, 
because he was supposed to be, and probably was, the friend 
of Roger Williams and of Gorton, while he was finally be- 
lieved by the United Colonies to be the crafty enemy of the 
English, and conspiring secretly for their entire destruction, 
as King Philip did a quarter of a century later. They were 
so thoroughly convinced of his treachery towards them and 
their allies that they suffered him to be destroyed by Uncas. 
Much has been written in testimony against the United 
Colonies for their action in this matter, which is unjust to 
them, for they acted reluctantly and upon careful examina- 
tion, and only allowed extreme measures when they regarded 
them needful for the preservation of the whole English enter- 
prise in America. 

Winthrop has left an interesting account of this visit of 
the chief to the home of Dudley. 2 

Mr. Savage, in his note to Winthrop, thought that Dudley 
manifested more resolution than good policy in his treatment 
of Miantonomoh. But Dudley says that he thought it a dis- 
honor to give way to him, and he was not the man to barter 
honor for anything. His judgment at the time ought to be 
conclusive, particularly since it was sustained by the General 
Court, that this magnificent savage needed to be instructed 
to respect the dignity and authority of Massachusetts. 

This year, 1640, was an important one in England, for 
the Puritans were coming into power, and the liberty which 
they were seeking in America was now becoming possible at 
home ; there were indications also of a revolution which they 

1 J. R. Lowell's Among my Books, i. 242. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *I5, *i6. 



274 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

could not honorably flee from, and which they felt it a re- 
ligious duty to share in. The emigration to Massachusetts 
from England had been so large, that in the ten years previ- 
ous to this period it is estimated that twenty thousand Eng- 
lish Puritans had come to the colony. The great rebellion 
stopped this influx of people, and from that time to the 
American Revolution it is said that more men returned to 
England from America than came thence to this country. 

This feature is not to be disregarded, because from this it 
is evident how large a portion of the inhabitants of America 
was native, and not foreign born, in a few generations. 

The Long Parliament was now assembled, and the great 
rebellion begun, and Massachusetts was left mostly to her- 
self for many years. Palfrey says : " The Puritan party in 
England, which did so many wonderful things, was at the 
start distinctly a party of reform and not a party of revolu- 
tion or separation in church and state." l 

We can hardly conceive what it meant for our forefathers 
to be set at liberty, three thousand miles away, from the 
dictation and influence of English politicians and of the 
established church. 

These Puritans were conservative people ; no body of men 
was ever less fanatical. " It is to Puritanism that we mainly 
owe the fact that in England religion and liberty were not 
dissevered amid all the fluctuations of fortune." 2 

Barry says : " Liberty in England existed but in name ; 
and for its revival that nation is largely indebted to the 
efforts of the Puritans. It has long been the fashion to 
deride this sect and to brand it as an embodiment of cant 
and hypocrisy. Few have comprehended the importance of 
its mission, fewer have awarded it its just meed of praise. 
It is so easy to misjudge, it is so easy to join in the sneer 
against principles which are despised and condemned, that 
the spirit which animated the body of the Puritans has been 
undervalued and lost sight of by those whose prejudices 

1 Palfrey, i. 304. 

2 Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, ii. 173 ; De Tocqueville, i. 43, 44. 



1639-40] PRINTING PRESS IN CAMBRIDGE 275 

incline them to speak lightly of everything not according 
with their own views and opinions." 1 

Froude has beautifully said of them : " These men were 
possessed of all the qualities which give nobility and gran- 
deur to human nature, men whose life was as upright as 
their intellect was commanding, and their public aims un- 
tainted with selfishness, unalterably just where duty required 
them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a woman in 
their hearts, frank, true, cheerful, humorous, as unlike sour 
fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in 
some way to sound the keynote to which every brave and 
faithful heart in Europe instinctively vibrated. This is the 
problem : grapes do not grow on bramble bushes." 2 

Governor Winthrop mentions in March, 1639, tnar - a 
" Printerie was begun at Cambridge by one Stephen Daye. 
The first issues from that press was an oath for freemen to 
sign, and Pierce's Little Almanack, followed in 1640 by the 
publication of 'The Whole Book of Psalms' in English 
Meter, for the Use, Edification and Comfort of the Saints 
in New England." 3 Soon a new translation was confided 
to Richard Mather, " whose voice was large and big, who 
was associated in this work with Rev. John Eliot and Rev. 
Thomas Welde, ministers at Roxbury." 4 

The General Court confirms the grant to Dudley of a farm 
in Ipswich, as follows : " The farm (granted by Ipswich to 
the present governor) [Dudley] which Mr. Whitingham pos- 
sessed is confirmed so far as it is in the Court's power." 5 

Winthrop says, " We received a letter at the General 
Court from the magistrates of Connecticut and New Haven 
and of Aquiday, wherein they declare their dislike of such 
as would have the Indians rooted out, as being of the cursed 
race of Ham, and their desire of our mutual accord in seek- 

1 Barry's Hist, of Mass., i. 322. 

2 J. A. Froude's Short Studies on Great Subjects, 2d series, 14, 52. 
8 Winthrop, i. 289. 

4 Mag. of Amer. Hist, xxiii. 384. 

5 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 304. 



276 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

ing to gain them by justice and kindness, and withal to 
watch over them to prevent any danger by them, etc. We 
returned answer of our consent with them in all things pro- 
pounded, only we refused to include those of Aquiday in 
our answer, or to have any treaty with them." 1 

It seems desirable to quote in full the Court record in this 
matter, which is as follows : " It is ordered, that the letter 
lately sent to the governor [Dudley] by Mr. Eaton, Mr. 
Hopkins, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Coddington and Mr. Brenton, 
but concerning also the General Court, shall be thus an- 
swered by the governor [Dudley], that the Court doth 
assent to all the propositions laid down in the aforesaid 
letter, but that the answer shall be directed to Mr. Eaton, 
Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Haynes, only excluding Mr. Codding- 
ton and Mr. Brenton as men not to be capitulated withal by 
us, either for themselves or the people of the island where 
they inhabit, as their case standeth." 2 Mr. Savage, in his 
note upon the extract from Winthrop's Journal made above, 
grows very much heated, and says, " By giving the order of 
Court, to which our text refers, I shall not deserve the con- 
demnation of exposing the nakedness of our fathers." The 
special thing which disturbs him is the exclusion of Codding- 
ton and Brenton, both of Newport, and Antinomians, in the 
above order. He continues further : " This is the most 
exalted triumph of bigotry." This word bigotry does not 
come gracefully from Mr. Savage, who says that Welde and 
other inquisitors have trusted much to the influence of an 
odious name. It is " the most common artifice of the exqui- 
site rancor of theological hatred." 3 

This was not bigotry ; it was the dignified, proper course 
of the General Court to take in a matter in which they were 
dealing with colonies, and not so much with individuals. 

These two persons had been separated and lost their citi- 
zenship in Massachusetts, and had been hostile to her in a 
very trying time. They did not represent any colony with 

1 Winthrop, ii. *2o. 2 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 305. 

3 Winthrop, i. *2i 5, note 1. 



1640] UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO CONTRACT 277 

a charter which Massachusetts recognized, neither did she 
regard them later otherwise than a community which ought 
to be attached either to herself or to Plymouth. 

They could not consistently have dealings with them as a 
colony, and yet Mr. Savage has suffered himself to continue 
his note as follows : " Papists, Jews, Mussulmans, Idolaters, 
or Atheists may be good parties to a civil contract, but not 
erroneous Protestant brethren, of unimpeachable piety, dif- 
fering from us in explication of unessential or unintelligible 
points of doubtful disputation." It does not appear that 
the difficulty about contracting was a question of nationality 
or of piety, and it may 'not have been at all a difference in 
belief. There may be good and sufficient reasons, satis- 
factory to one's self, why he should not enter into a contract 
or alliance even with his own brother or friend ; he certainly 
has the right to judge for himself whether he will or will not, 
and it does not seem to be the business of other people. 

" It was not enough that the common charities of life were 
broken off, but our rulers proved the sincerity of their folly 
by refusing connection in a just and necessary course of 
policy 1 which demanded the concurrence of all the planta- 
tions on our coast." It might demand the action of Massa- 
chusetts and of the separate plantations, but the necessity for 
concurrence in action does not appear. We will not claim 
that these words of Mr. Savage, to use his own quoted 
expression, are the " artifice of the exquisite rancor of theo- 
logical hatred," but they do seem to be inspired by a partisan 
and prejudiced spirit which manifests itself in many places 
in his notes. 

It is painful to notice in this connection how easily this 
prejudice infects successive*writers, and that even so faithful 
a man as J. A. Doyle has suffered himself to commend and 
approve 'this wrong, and, finally, unjustly to concentrate the 
whole force of his discreditable charges upon Dudley, as fol- 
lows : " It is consolatory to those who reverence the mem- 

1 The policy might be just, but how necessary, except to Rhode 
Island, that they should join her jn it, is not evident. 



278 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxiv 

ory of the great New England statesman, that Dudley, and 
not Winthrop, was the governor when this outburst of fanat- 
ical malignity was recorded." 1 

Arnold says : " The governor of Massachusetts at this 
time was the bigoted Dudley, the man upon whose person 
there was found, when on his death-bed, this original couplet, 
which embodies the prevailing sentiment of the age : — 

' Let men of God in courts and churches watch 
O'er such as do a toleration hatch.' 

A verse no doubt considered equally creditable to the piety 
and the poetic genius of the author. We think it was." 

Mr. Arnold, after quoting those remarkable lines, which 
have such a fascination for some persons, and reflecting upon 
both the piety and poetic genius of Dudley, which is usual 
in these cases, concludes with these words full of prejudice : 
" That such a governor should adopt such a course might be 
expected." It is only needful to give heed to the order of 
the Court, which has been quoted and which is the founda- 
tion of all this bitterness, to discover that the governor, 
Dudley, had no choice in this matter, was only the presiding 
officer sworn to execute the orders of the General Court, 
which were that the answers shall be directed to certain 
ones only, excluding Mr. Coddington and Mr. Brenton as 
men not to be capitulated by them. 

It is further to be noted that Winthrop, who they find 
such consolation in remembering was not governor at the 
time, and so, they declare, free from blame in this and other 
instances of intolerance, was present at this Court, and took 
part in constructing this order alleged to be full of bigotry. 

Arnold heaps all the supposed opprobrium of this matter 
upon Dudley, to whom he alludes with sentiments of con- 
tempt which are unjust and unreasonable. 2 

1 J. A. Doyle's The English in America, i. 309. 

2 Felt, i. 457; Arnold's Hist. R. I., i. 147. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Our excuse for introducing the following mere business 
note from Dudley to Winthrop is that every original docu- 
ment which connects these distinguished men possesses a 
public interest. 

To MY HONORED BROTHER, JOHN WlNTHROP, ESQ., at his 

house at Boston. 

Sir, — I have received the 20 li., 1 sent now by your man, 

for which I thank you. The truth is, I owe the whole 50 li. 

to be paid the end of this month, and have no other money to 

pay it. The money is not yet gathered up here for you, and 

how much will be in money I yet know not : for the other 

things you write of I likewise return thanks and purpose to 

confer thereof with you at my coming to Boston, and in the 

mean time and ever shall rest, 

Your very assured 

Tho : Dudley. 
Roxbury, 4 month: 15 day, 1640. 2 

It is enacted this year that the preliminary election should 
be held in the towns, the lists of votes to be sent to Bos- 
ton by the deputies, and the candidates who stood highest 
in the list were the required number to be voted for or 
against by the whole body of freemen. 3 

Richard Bellingham was chosen governor at the election 
in 164 1, he having six more votes than Winthrop. There 

1 Li. is probably an abbreviation of libra, a pound. (Century Diet., 
4657 ; Ency. Brit., 9th ed. 655.) 

2 Indorsed by Governor Winthrop, " Bro : Dudley, Governour." 
(Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vii. no; Winthrop Papers, pt. 11.) 

8 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 293. 



280 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

were, however, some persons who were said not to have 
voted who now desired to do so, but were refused because 
they had not voted regularly at the door. Bellingham was a 
lawyer, and had an equal share with Winthrop and Dudley 
in framing the colonial laws. 

This election seems to have greatly disturbed Winthrop, 
who undoubtedly felt that if the election had been fairly held 
he himself would have been elected governor. It was the 
democratic spirit of the period and a desire for rotation in 
office, rather than personal hostility to Winthrop, which 
<elected Bellingham at this time. It is evident that in the 
years following the Antinomian controversy party spirit was 
high, and that there were church factions, political factions, 
and disturbing party influences. The alleged informality in 
the election resulted at once in the unpopularity of Belling- 
ham, because they at once passed a vote to repeal " the 
order formerly made for allowing a hundred pounds to the 
governor." 1 

Winthrop says, "The governor, Mr. Bellingham, was mar- 
ried. (I would not mention such ordinary matters in our his- 
tory, but by occasion of some remarkable accidents.) The 
young gentlewoman was ready to be contracted to a friend 
of his, who lodged in his house, and by his consent had pro- 
ceeded so far with her, when of the sudden the governor 
treated with her, and obtained her for himself. He excused 
it by the strength of his affection, and that she was not 
absolutely promised to the other gentleman. Two errors 
more he committed upon it: ist, That he would not have 
his contract published where he dwelt, contrary to an order 
of Court ; 2d, That he married himself contrary to the con- 
stant practice of the country." 2 

Savage says : " The people were scandalized at such a 
breach of order in their chief magistrate." 

Winthrop says also : " There fell out a case between Mr. 
Dudley, one of the council, and Mr. Howe, a ruling elder of 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 319. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *43- 



1641] DUDLEY RESOLVED TO LEAVE HIS PLACE 281 

the church of Watertown, about a title to a mill. 1 The case 
is too long here to report, but it was so clear on Dudley's 
part, both in law and equity (most of the magistrates also 
and deputies concurring therein), as the elders being desired 
to be present at the hearing of the case, they also consented 
with the judgment of the Court, before the case was put to 
vote, and some of them humbly advised the Court, that it 
would be greatly to their dishonor, and an apparent injustice, 
if they should otherwise determine. Notwithstanding, he 
[Bellingham] still labored to have the cause carried against 
Mr. Dudley." 2 

Winthrop proceeds to describe the conduct of the gov- 
ernor on this occasion as being very unjust, unworthy, 
revealing a very hostile spirit toward Dudley. 

There were other instances of improper conduct in Court, 
and Winthrop says : " Upon these and other miscarriages 
the deputies consulted together, and sent up their speaker, 
with some others, to give him [Bellingham] a solemn admo- 
nition, which was never done to any governor before, nor 
was it in their power without the magistrates had joined." 3 

Winthrop continues : " These continual oppositions and 
delays, tending to the hindrance and perverting of justice, 
afforded much occasion of grief to all the magistrates, espe- 
cially to Mr. Dudley, who being a very wise and just man, 
and one that would not be trodden under foot of any man, 
took occasion (alleging his age, etc.) to tell the Court that 
he was resolved to leave his place, and therefore desired 
them against the next Court of Elections to think of some 
other. 

" The Court was much affected with it, and entreated him 
with manifestation of much affection and respect towards 
him, to leave off these thoughts, and offered him any ease 
and liberty that his age and infirmities might stand in need 
of, but he continued resolute. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 344. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *5o, *5i. 

8 lb., ii. *53 ; J. B. Moore's Memoirs Amer. Governors, 338. 



282 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

" Thereupon the governor [Bellingham] also made a speech, 
as if he desired to leave his place of magistracy also, but he 
was fain to make his own answer, for no man desired him to 
keep or to consider better of it." 1 

It is a notable fact that Bellingham and Salton stall were 
frequently found in hostile opposition to the older magis- 
trates and their ideas. Nobody can read these accounts 
without discovering that Dudley was a far stronger man 
than Bellingham. 

Bellingham has been described as a more thorough lawyer 
than Dudley, which may well be doubted, but he certainly ex- 
ceeds Bellingham in manly dignity, in uprightness of charac- 
ter ; for though Dudley was a man of strong emotions, and 
is sometimes represented as exhibiting righteous indignation 
when he felt that either he himself or his principles, or what 
he conceived to be the just course, were assailed, yet he 
never anywhere appears as a party in any discreditable or 
unworthy conduct or speeches. And this in a measure is 
true in comparing Dudley and Endicott. 

The strength, dignity, and consistency of Winthrop and 
Dudley seem to raise them in intellectual and moral gran- 
deur above their associates ; and while they lived, all the 
others occupied a secondary place, and in general were 
recognized by the colony as ranking beneath them in im- 
portance and influence. We are able to discover in this 
description which Winthrop has left us of the feelings of the 
Court when Dudley tendered his resignation with great sin- 
cerity and without mental reservation, giving his reasons, 
that he was universally held in high esteem ; enjoying a pop- 
ularity among his associates which any man might justly be 
proud of, having just left the office of governor and having 
been so many years constantly in the public eye ; and it adds 
weight to these words that they flow from the pen of his 
great political rival. 

The Colonial Records contain the following : " Mr. Dud- 
ley [June 2, 1 641] was entreated to answer Mr. Fen wick's 
Winthrop, ii. *SS- 



1641] DUDLEY ANSWERS FENWICK'S LETTER 283 

letter according to the directions indorsed." 1 And we are 
interested to learn what it was about. 

We have been unable to find any portion of this corre- 
spondence, but there is reason to believe that it refers to a 
controversy between Massachusetts, George Fenwick, 2 and 
Connecticut respecting the true line between Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut and the right to the Connecticut River, 
involving also the question whether Springfield was in one 
colony or the other. 3 

William Pynchon, Esq., had made a settlement already at 
Agawam, afterwards called Springfield. These rights were 
finally settled after much deliberation by the Confederacy of 
the United Colonies. Between the years 164 1 and 1643 the 
rights of the parties were constantly being considered and 
agitated, and in this controversy both Fenwick and Massa- 
chusetts took an active part. 

It is interesting in this connection to remember that Fen- 
wick was a delegate to the first Congress of the United 
Colonies at Boston, at which the Articles of Confederation 
were adopted. 

Fenwick was afterwards famous in English history as a 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 319. 

2 " Minutes of the General Court, 2~4mo (June), 1641. • For answer 
to Mr. Fenwick's letter written to Mr. Dudley, Mr. Dudley to answer 
according to the four heads indorsed on the letter : First, it is thought 
by many of the Court that it (Springfield) is within our patent ; Second, 
our claim is from the Pequot conquest, if that (our Patent) fail, and 
the Pequot right is before your patent ; Third, we know not whether 
it be within your patent or no, because we never saw it nor copy of 
it ; Fourth, for the division of the tribute we ( ) ; but ( ) that 
which was appointed for the river, your share was in it, a letter to Mr. 
Hunter to forbid him for setting up ( ) trading house up the river ; 
and (if he) will not, the governor to send to pull it down and to write 
to him to send our proportion of the tribute.' (Mass. Archives, State 
House, Boston, vol. lxxxvii. p. 251.) Compared with the original, Jan. 
28, 1898." 

We have recently discovered these minutes in the Mass. Archives, 
which explain the letter. 

8 Mass. Col. Rec.,i. 323, 324; Trumbull's Conn., i. 118. 



284 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

colonel in the army of the English Commonwealth, and as 
one of the judges selected by Cromwell to try Charles the 
First. He had the wisdom, however, not to sit, and escaped 
the danger which subsequently attended members of that 
court. On the same second day of June " Mr. Symonds, 
Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Dummer, Mr. Bellingham, and Mr. Dudley 
were appointed to assist at Ipswich court." 1 

On the same day, also, Batt, Dudley, and Winslow were 
appointed to order small causes for Salisbury, and one of 
them to see people joined in marriage and keep records. 2 
Governor Winthrop says : " Mrs. Hutchinson and those of 
Aquiday Island broached new heresies every year. Divers 
of them turned professed Anabaptists and would not wear any 
arms, and denied all magistracy among Christians, and main- 
tained that there were no churches since those founded by 
the Apostles and Evangelist." 3 Samuel G. Arnold says 
with reference to this extract from Winthrop : " We prefer 
to quote him [Winthrop] because he was the most liberal 
man of his age and station, to citing the more bitter denun- 
ciations of Hubbard and Mather, or the many other writers of 
that and the succeeding century, whose Dudleian spirit would 
perhaps more truly portray the prevailing temper of the 
times." 4 

It is evident that Arnold had been touched by the Dud- 
leian poetry, but he also indirectly thus compliments Dudley 
with having been abreast of his age and with being the spirit 
or very incarnation of it. These were the most remarkable 
" times in the tides of men," the most fruitful in events and 
seed-sowing. Arnold, like Savage, is disturbed by the terms 
Anabaptists and Antinomians, and says that they "were 
used generally to designate all dissenters from the estab- 
lished faith." This is certainly a questionable statement; 
we do not think that these terms were applied to Presbyte- 
rians or other well-established sects. The General Court sets 
forth as follows : — 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 328. 2 lb., i. 329. 

8 Winthrop, ii. *38, *4o. 4 Arnold's Hist. R. I., i. 151. 



1641] THE BODY OF LIBERTIES 285 

" It being found by experience that the course of elections 
had need to be brought into some better order, the freemen 
growing to so great a multitude as will be overburdensome 
to the country. . . . The way which this Court hath thought 
on is, that in every town which is to send a deputy to the 
Court, the freemen to meet before the Court of Election, 
and for every ten freemen to choose one, to be sent to the 
Court with power to make election for all the rest, and in 
this way to be at liberty whether they will join all together 
or vote severally, or to vote so as every one that hath ten 
votes shall be an elector, and magistrates and elders to put 
in their votes as other freemen." J 

The system of tens disappeared the next year. The towns 
were to elect one or two representatives, and these represen- 
tatives formed a list of candidates, from which the freemen 
elected. 

Winthrop writes in regard to the General Court of Decem- 
ber, 1 64 1 : "This session continued three weeks, and estab- 
lished one hundred laws which were called the Body of 
Liberties. They had been composed by Mr. Nathaniel 
Ward (sometime pastor of the church of Ipswich ; he had 
been a minister in England and formerly a student and 
practicer in the courts of the common law), and had been 
revised and altered by the Court, and sent forth into every 
town to be further considered of, and now again in this 
Court, they were revised, amended, and presented, and so 
established for three years, by that experience to have them 
fully amended and established to be perpetual." 2 It is evi- 
dent from this that while Ward drew the outlines of the 
Body of Liberties, all the lawyers of the General Court 
examined, revised, and amended them, or had an opportunity 
to do so. 

This code was the foundation of the legislation and laws 
of Massachusetts. We notice in No. 71 of the Body of 
Liberties, " The governor shall have a casting voice when- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 333, 334. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *55« 



286 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

soever an equi vote shall fall out in the Court of Assistants, 
or General Assembly, so shall the president or moderator 
have in all civil courts or assemblies." 1 

This gave a new power and dignity to the governor, who 
previously had been first among his equals. " In the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and in those of many States 
of the Union, it is provided that the presiding officer thereby 
designated shall give the casting vote when the body over 
which he presides is equally divided." 2 

We have already noticed the founding of Harvard Col- 
lege, and the fact that Dudley was from 1636, during the 
remainder of his life, one of its patrons and overseers. 
George B. Emerson has said that " the people of Massachu- 
setts at that time were poor, with all the hardships of new 
settlers in a savage country, clearing up the forests, build- 
ing houses and barns and churches, enlarging their pastures, 
and bringing the earth into cultivation. . . . One of the most 
remarkable things in the history of Harvard College is the 
fact that in all the constitutions of the college there is 
nothing illiberal or sectarian, nothing to check the freest 
pursuit of truth in theological opinions and in everything 
else ; and this, too, while the founders of the college were 
severely and strictly orthodox, often exclusive in their own 
opinions." And yet these men are branded by some subse- 
quent citizens as narrow and bigoted. 

They have also been accounted broad and liberal, because 
they extinguished feudalism and created unlimited alienation 
of land, but greater glory is to be attributed to them for giv- 
ing freedom of mind, and opening the ways of truth and life 
to all the generations of men which were to follow. 

The device on the first seal was "Veritas." This was fol- 
lowed by " In Christi Gloriam " (To the Glory of Christ), 
and this soon after by the present motto, " Christo et Eccle- 
siae " (To Christ and the Church). 3 

1 W. H. Whitmore's Col. Laws of Mass., 1660 to 1672, 49. 

2 Cushing's Law and Practice of Legislative Assemblies, §§ 298, 391. 
8 George B. Emerson, Mass. and its Early Hist., 468. 



1642] LETTER TO REV. JOHN WOODBRIDGE 287 

The conditions for admission at Harvard College were 
higher, it is said, in 1642 than they have been since. The 
following requirement seems pretty severe : " Whoever shall 
be able to read Cicero, or any such like classical author at 
sight, and correctly and without assistance, to speak and 
write Latin, in prose and verse, and to inflect exactly the 
paradigms of Greek nouns and verbs, has a right to expect 
to be admitted into the college ; and no one may claim 
admission without these qualifications." * 

Savage thinks that there were in the colony probably, in 
1638, forty or fifty sons of the University of Cambridge in 
Old England, one for every two hundred or two hundred 
and fifty inhabitants, dwelling in the few villages of Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut. The sons of Oxford were not 
few. 2 Mercy Dudley, the fifth child of Governor Thomas 
Dudley, married, in 164 1, the Rev. John Woodbridge, 3 of 
Newbury, Mass. He had been at Oxford, and was highly 
regarded by Dudley. The following letter to him, about 
one year after the marriage, is a valuable contribution, since 
it illustrates the affectionate character of Dudley, which is 
more important because we have very little knowledge of his 
domestic and family life, except through Mrs. Bradstreet, 
but are limited almost entirely in our study to his public 
career : — 

Son Woodbridge, — On your last going from Roxbury, I 
thought you would have returned again before your depar- 
ture hence, and therefore neither bade you farewell, nor sent 
any remembrance to your wife. Since which time I have 
often thought of you, and of the course of your life, doubt- 
ing you are not in the way wherein you may do God best 
service. Every man ought (as I take it) to serve God in 
such a way whereto he hath best fitted him by nature, educa- 
tion, or gifts, or graces required. Now in all these respects 
I conceive you to be better fitted for the ministry, or teach- 

1 J. Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ., i. 515. 

2 Winthrop, i. *265, note 2. 3 App. F. 



288 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

ing a school, than for husbandry. And I have been lately 
stirred up the rather to think hereof by occasion of Mr. 
Carter's calling to be pastor at Woburn the last week, and 
Mr. Parker's calling to preach at Pascattaway, whose abilities 
and piety (for aught I know) surmount not yours. There is 
a want of schoolmasters hereabouts, and ministers are, or 
in likelihood will be, wanting ere long. I desire that you 
would seriously consider of what I say, and take advice of 
your uncle, Mr. Noyse, or whom you think meetest about it ; 
withal considering that no man's opinion in a case wherein 
he is interested by reason of your departure from your pre- 
sent habitation is absolutely to be allowed without comparing 
his reason with others. 

And if you find encouragement, I think you were best 
redeem what time you may without hurt of your estate, in 
perfecting your former studies. 

Above all, commend the case in prayer to God, that you 
may look before you with a sincere eye upon his service, not 
upon filthy lucre, which I speak not so much for any doubt 
I have of you, but to clear myself from that suspicion in 
respect of the interest I have in you. I need say no more. 
The Lord direct and bless you, your wife and children, whom 
I would fain see, and have again some thoughts of it, if I live 
till next summer. 

Your very loving father, 

Thomas Dudley. 
Roxbury, November 28th, 1642. 

To my very loving son Mr. John Woodbridge, at his house in New- 
bury. 1 

This letter is of great value, because Dudley has herein 
honestly expressed his conviction of the secondary impor- 
tance in this world of money-getting. He has often been 
represented, as we have seen, to have been avaricious and 
grasping, which was indeed quite contrary to his nature. 
That he was one of the wealthiest men in the colony may 
have contributed improperly to have given him a mercenary 
1 Winthrop, ii. *253, note. 



1642] DUDLEY'S CHARACTER 289 

character. We know that he had habits of thrift and an 
aptitude for business which rendered him of great service to 
the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, and to Massachusetts. If 
he had been a miserly man he would never have emigrated 
to America. He must have been actuated by far higher 
motives than the acquiring of a fortune. 

Dudley, in the second place, was a deeply religious man ; 
he served God rather than mammon. His words in this 
letter strongly confirm our opinion of him in this respect. 
He says with great sincerity and deep pathos, in the most 
disinterested manner, to his son, " Above all, commend the 
case in prayer to God, that you may look before you with a 
sincere eye upon his service, not upon filthy lucre." These 
are not the words of a sordid man, but they strike the very 
keynote to the character and career of Dudley. 

There is throughout this letter a flavor of liberal thought 
which is an answer to the unjust conception of his character 
which has been almost universally set forth in recent years. 

The influence of the revolution which was going on in 
England seems at once to have reached Massachusetts, the 
colony, without much public manifestation of feeling, being 
deeply in sympathy with their Puritan brethren. They were 
bound to them not only by political or religious interests, 
but more strongly, if possible, by family bonds, intimate per- 
sonal friendship, and acquaintance. They were persons with 
whom they had constantly consulted respecting the great 
emigration to America and the fortunes of the colony during 
twelve years. The two commonwealths on either side of 
the sea had much in common. They were both Saxon 
uprisings against feudalism and the Royalists. The one in 
England nearly failed of its purpose, while the other in 
America survives with ever-increasing possibilities. 

This revolution revealed itself in this country by the omis- 
sion in the oath of allegiance to the king so far as the magis- 
trates and officers were concerned, leaving the words as 
follows : " It is ordered and declared to be the meaning of 
this Court, that no oath of magistrate or counselor or any 



290 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

other officer shall bind him any further or longer than he is 
resident or inhabiting within this jurisdiction." 1 

This is quite different from " You swear to be faithful and 
loyal to our Sovereign, Lord, the King's Majesty and to his 
heirs and successors." 

This was a very remarkable political severance from the 
mother country, and was a step far on the way towards 
independence. The growth in population which had taken 
place during twelve years was astonishing. There were 
twenty-one flourishing towns at this time, Boston being more 
than twice as large as any other town in taxable importance, 
a prominence in Massachusetts which she has always main- 
tained. 

Robert C. Winthrop says that " the year 1642 saw Win- 
throp restored to chief magistracy of the colony ; not, how- 
ever, it would seem, without some heart-burning on the part 
of his old rival, Thomas Dudley." There may have been 
two versions to this story, as there are to many others in 
literature. But, if there ever were two, only one has come 
down to us ; and that is contained in the following passage 
from Winthrop, vol. ii. p. *63, dated May 18, 1642 : — 

" The Court of elections was. Mr. Winthrop was again 
chosen governor, and Mr. Endicott, deputy governor. This 
being done, Mr. Dudley went away, and though he were 
chosen an assistant yet he would not accept it. Some of 
the elders went to his house to deal with him. His answer 
was, that he had sufficient reasons to excuse and warrant this 
refusal, which he did not think fit to publish, but he would 
impart to any one or two of them whom they should appoint, 
which he did accordingly. The elders acquainted the Court 
with what they had done, but not with the reasons of his 
refusal, only that they thought them not sufficient. The 
Court sent a magistrate and two deputies to desire him to 
come to the Court, for as a counselor he was to assist in the 
General Court. The next day he came, and after some 
excuse he consented to accept the place, so that the Court 
1 Maverick's Description of N. E., 1660, 19. 



1642] DUDLEY CHARGED WITH PETTY JEALOUSY 291 

would declare that if at any time he should depart out of the 
jurisdiction (which he protested he did not intend), no oath, 
either of officer, counselor, or assistant, should hold him in 
any bond where he stood. 

" This he desired, not for his own satisfaction, but that 
it might be a satisfaction to others who might scruple his 
liberty herein. After much debate, the Court made a gen- 
eral order which gave him satisfaction." 1 

Robert C. Winthrop seems to have received the opinion 
that Dudley was a candidate in the above election and was 
defeated by Winthrop, and that he went away in wrath 
although he was chosen to a third place in the government, 
which he would not accept. It is quite possible that he is 
mistaken in this opinion. It appears in the same Journal, 
page *55, that Dudley, who had now arrived at the age of 
sixty-five years, began to feel official duty to be a burden 
(and although he continued years after, a certain special free- 
dom was granted to him), for less than a year before he had 
resigned from the said office of magistrate, and the offer 
was then made to him of " any ease and liberty that his age 
and infirmities might stand in need of." It may have been, 
and probably was, a question of infirmities or of some per- 
sonal consideration entirely apart from jealousy of Winthrop, 
or rivalry, or any feeling on his part of want of appreciation 
of him by the people. His hold upon the public before, 
after, and during this period are a sufficient guarantee to us 
that he had no occasion whatever for "heartburning" over 
the momentary success of Winthrop, to which good fortune 
he doubtless heartily contributed, and with whom he had 
long ceased to contend. So far as the record goes they 
labored together as the leaders of the commonwealth ; as 
the joint leaders, also, of a political party, without mean and 
selfish personal ambition for office. They were each thought- 
ful only of the prosperity or glory of Massachusetts. Dud- 
ley had known too much of the fortunes of politics to show 
ill temper and pout like a silly child over his defeat for an 
1 R. C. Winthrop's Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 268, 269. 



292 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxv 

office which there is much reason to believe would have been 
a burden to him. It is noticeable in confirmation of this 
opinion that, " after much debate, the Court made a general 
order." Which order evidently was intended to extend his 
freedom in office and not to heal any petty grievance, arising 
from envy, over the fortunes of his " Brother " Winthrop. 

J. B. Moore, in his "Memoirs of American Governors," 
page 289, alludes to this subject, but it does not seem that 
the interpretation of this passage from the Journal which 
Robert C. Winthrop has arrived at, occurred to him, for he 
says, " Dudley refused to accept that place in the latter 
year, unless the General Court would give him liberty to 
remove from their jurisdiction whenever it might suit his 
convenience, without being bound in any existing oath or 
regulation, either as an officer, counselor, or assistant. To 
these conditions the General Court readily assented." 

Moore may be regarded as entirely impartial in this judg- 
ment. Finally, nothing ought to be taken as mere inference 
against the character of Dudley without positive evidence, 
which does not exist in this case. The presumption of his 
innocence of such petty conduct towards his great associate, 
in the presence of the Court, remains firm and unimpeach- 
able. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The public highways received the attention of the Gen- 
eral Court. " It is declared by this Court, that the selected 
townsmen have power to lay out particular private ways 
concerning their own town only, so as no damage be done to 
any man, but due recompense be given by the judgment of 
said townsmen." 1 The further power at the very next Court 
was conferred upon the selectmen, sometimes called pruden- 
tial committee, to see to the education of neglected children, 
especially that they have ability to read and understand the 
principles of religion and the capital laws of the country. 2 

It would be interesting to follow from 1633 the powers of 
selectmen in towns, until they became, as at present, the 
complete executive authority in the New England town, 
which was developed from each of these little villages, begin- 
ning with the village parish government as found in Eng- 
land. So strictly is this true that in many of the towns of 
Massachusetts the early town and parish records are united 
and are one and the same. 

The subject of the Standing Council, or Council for Life, 
which was never composed of any persons except Winthrop, 
Dudley, the governor ex-officio, and later Endicott, was, June 
14, 1642, 3 apparently brought out by the defeated Belling- 
ham faction to irritate the triumphant party of Winthrop. 
For when Winthrop succeeded Bellingham, "a book was 
brought into the Court wherein the institution of the Stand- 
ing Council was pretended to be a sinful innovation. The 
governor moved to have the contents of the book examined, 
and then if there appeared cause, to inquire after the author. 
But the greatest part of the Court having some intimation 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 4. 2 lb., ii. 6, 9. 8 lb., ii. 5-21. 



294 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

of the author, of whose honest intentions they were well 
persuaded," withheld their influence against the book. 
" Whereupon it was found to have been made by Mr. Sal- 
tonstall," who was the intimate friend of Bellingham, and 
usually joined him with the popular party against the other 
magistrates. It may be that for this reason the deputies 
felt under obligation to protect Saltonstall in exercising his 
freedom in abusing the council. The matter is quite insig- 
nificant, since the council had already been shorn of its 
power. The book had found its way into the hands of Dud- 
ley, who had prepared an answer to it. " The Court would 
not agree to any action except Saltonstall were first acquit 
from any censure." 

There were various excuses made explaining his intentions 
in writing the book. "As that the council was instituted 
unwarily to satisfy Vane's desire, etc., whereas it was well 
known to many in the Court, as themselves affirmed, that it 
was upon the advice and solicitation of the elders, and after 
much deliberation from Court to Court. Other passages 
there were also which were very unsound, reproachful, and 
dangerous, and was manifested by an answer made thereunto 
by Dudley, and received at the next session of the Court, 
and by some observations made by Mr. Norris, a grave and 
judicious elder, teacher of the church in Salem (and with 
some difficulty read also in Court) who, not suspecting the 
author, handled him somewhat sharply according to the merit 
of the matter." * Dudley seems to have taken a leading part 
in this controversy in behalf of the Standing Council. He 
convinced Winthrop that the book was " unsound, reproach- 
ful, and dangerous," and it may be assumed that his argu- 
ment had a strong influence, for the matter was referred to 
the elders, with the following result : " By the wisdom and 
faithfulness of the elders, Mr. Saltonstall was brought to 
see his failings in that treatise, which he did ingenuously 
acknowledge and bewail, and so he was reconciled with the 
rest of the magistrates." 2 

1 Winthrop, ii. *6$. a lb., ii. *n6. 



1642-43] PROTECTIVE MEASURES 295 

Some of the arguments are preserved in Winthrop, vol. ii. 
pp. *9, *9i. There seems to be no copy of Dudley's answer 
to this book, which is much to be lamented, as it might 
throw light upon the pending political controversy. 

The agitation in England which culminated this year in 
civil war showed itself at once in this country. An attempt 
was made to maintain allegiance to the king, which was ren- 
dered futile by the people. Massachusetts foresaw at once 
that she might have to defend herself, both against foreign 
and domestic enemies, and particularly against the royal 
party in England. She recognized that self-preservation is 
the first consideration, and that to this end she must husband 
every resource and become as independent of all govern- 
ments and peoples as her circumstances would permit. She 
has told her own troublous story in the following pathetic 
words: "This Court, taking into serious consideration the 
great danger that this commonweal is liable unto by foreign 
and domestic foes, which we have just cause to conceive 
will be ready, as opportunity and means are put into their 
hands to practice against us, and being willing to lay hold 
on, and use all such means as God shall direct us unto, as 
may tend to the raising and producing such materials 
amongst ourselves as may protect the making of gunpow- 
der, the instrumental means that all nations lay hold on for 
their preservation." 1 Then follows in the order directions 
that every plantation shall proceed to produce saltpetre 
according to the directions therein given, placing the matter 
under the care of the military, that it may be executed 
promptly and faithfully. 

" It was ordered that the twenty-first of the Fifth Month 
should be kept as a day of public humiliation throughout 
this jurisdiction, in regard of our own straits, and the foul 
sins broken out amongst us, and the distractions of our 
native country, Ireland, Holland, and the other parts of 
Europe." 2 

This order shows how thoroughly the colonists were watch- 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 17, 29. 2 lb., ii. 16. 



296 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

ing the struggle in Europe and the advancement of liberty. 
Very special attention was given by the Court to the pro- 
duction of leather in the largest possible amount, which 
indicates that they already felt that they could not depend 
upon foreign commerce for the essentials of life, and that an 
early severance with the mother country was even now loom- 
ing up before them. 

That great modern system or artifice known as the political 
caucus appears in the following order, that every town shall 
choose one or two freemen, " who shall meet at Salem on a 
certain day, and shall there consider and agree" upon the 
most able and fit men to be put in nomination for magistrates 
at the next Court of Elections. This order may have arisen, 
and probably did, from jealousy of the magistrates. 

Commissioners were sent on the 8th of September, 1642, 
to Miantonomoh, with certain instructions to demand satis- 
faction of him upon twelve points set forth in writing, and 
among these the most prominent, that the Narragansett 
Indians have conspired with other sachems in making war 
upon the English. It was this fear and dread which resulted 
in the destruction of Miantonomoh the next year. 

How important this matter was in the judgment of the 
colony will be seen by the following direction to Mr. Wan- 
nerton : " The General Court holden at Boston, the 8th of 
September, 1642 (upon creditable information of a general 
bloody design of the Indians against all the English in this 
country, and of great supply of powder and guns which they 
have from the English in the eastern parts, which living 
alone and under no government, cannot, by any ordinary way 
of justice be punished or restrained), have given power and 
commission to you to make seizure of all such powder." 
And their anxiety is further manifest as to the plot and con- 
spiracies of the heathen among them, for they issue six spe- 
cific directions to citizens of every town with reference to 
alarms to be given day and night, places for retreat for wives 
and children, and due preparation of ammunition fitting them 
for sudden occasions. " And that all watches throughout 



1642-43] GOVERNMENT OF THE COLLEGE 297 

this country be set at sunset, at the beat of the drum, and 
not be discharged till the beat of the drum at sunrising." J 

The following was ordered : " Whereas by the order of 
Court in the Seventh Month, 1636, there was appointed and 
named six magistrates, and six elders, to order the college of 
Cambridge, of which twelve somewhat removed out of this 
jurisdiction, — it is therefore ordered that the governor and 
deputy for the time being, and all the magistrates of this 
jurisdiction, etc. . . . shall have from time to time full power 
and authority to make and establish all such orders, statutes, 
and constitutions, as they shall see necessary for the insti- 
tuting, guiding, and furthering of the said college, and the 
several members thereof from time to time in piety, moral- 
ity, and learning." As we have already noticed, Dudley was 
a perpetual member of this board ever after the founding 
of the college, during his life. Mr. J. A. Doyle has taken 
occasion to say that, " in their sobriety of thought and in 
their manly simplicity and force of language, the works of 
Bradford and Winthrop stand out as noble exceptions to 
the literature of Puritan New England." 2 

It seems to us that he might well have included the writ- 
ings of Dudley, especially his letter to the Countess of Lin- 
coln. Even if its brevity seems to exclude it from the larger 
works of literature, composed by the persons mentioned, 
still in strength of English and clearness of statement it 
seems equal to the best work of either of them. 

The most memorable event in the year 1643 was no doubt 
the political confederation of the four principal colonies of 
New England. It has been thought that this confederacy 
was suggested by that of the Low Countries. However that 
may be, it was the Plymouth Colony which called the atten- 
tion of the other colonies more directly to this subject. 

We find the following act of the General Court on the 
10th of May, 1643 : "The governor, Mr. Dudley, Mr. Brad- 
street, Mr. Treasurer, Captain Gibbons, and Mr. Hawthorne 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 25, 26, 29. 

2 English in America, i. 319. 



298 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

are chosen to treat with our friends of Connecticut, New 
Haven, and Plymouth about a confederacy between us." 
This confederacy was the prototype and first beginning of 
the United States of America. 

It is therefore with unfeigned pride and satisfaction that 
we discover the name of Dudley on the first committee at 
the very inception of this remarkable and far-reaching experi- 
ment in government. The Articles of Confederation were 
subscribed on the 19th of May by the commissioners, save 
those of Plymouth, who subscribed a little later in the same 
year after consultation with the colony at home. 

The preamble to these articles is as follows : " Whereas 
we all came into these parts of America with one and the 
same end and aim, namely, to advance the kingdom of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel 
in purity with peace ; and whereas by our settling, by the 
wise providence of God, we are further dispersed upon the 
seacoasts and rivers than was at first intended, so that we 
cannot, according to our desire, with convenience communi- 
cate in one government and jurisdiction ; and whereas we 
live encompassed with people of several nations and strange 
languages, which hereafter may prove injurious to us or 
our posterity ; and forasmuch as the natives have formerly 
committed sundry insolences and outrages upon several 
plantations of the English, and have of late combined them- 
selves against us, and seeing by reason of the sad distrac- 
tions in England (which they have heard of), and by which 
they know we are hindered, both from that humble way of 
seeking advice, and reaping those comfortable fruits of pro- 
tection, which at other times we might well expect ; we 
therefore do conceive it our bounden duty, without delay, to 
enter into a present consociation amongst ourselves for mu- 
tual help and strength in all future concernment, that, as in 
nation and religion, so in other respects, we be and continue 
one, according to the tenor and true meaning of the ensu- 
ing articles." 1 Which articles were eleven in number. 
1 Winthrop, ii. *ioi, *io6. 



1642-43] THE CONFEDERACY FORMED 299 

It is said that the best account of the confederacy is in Hub- 
bard's " History of New England." 1 

The people of the several nations mentioned in this pre- 
amble include the French on their eastern boundary, the 
Dutch on their western, the Indians all about them ; and in 
their thoughts, although not expressed in the preamble, is a 
dangerous faction in the mother country, which is liable at 
any time to exhibit its power in an attempt to reduce them 
to obedience to royal authority. 

The colonies were represented by two persons from each 
of them, like the several state representations in the present 
Senate of the United States, and were therefore equal in the 
confederacy in the matter of voting and in power. Massa- 
chusetts was larger in population and in wealth than all the 
other colonies together ; her moral influence had greater 
weight in directing the action of the confederacy than that 
of any other colony, a prestige which she has maintained far 
down in the history of the republic. 

Winthrop was chosen president at the first session of the 
commissioners, and presided over the doings of that first con- 
gress. He was again chosen president of the confederacy 
in the year 1645, an honor which was also twice conferred 
(namely in the years 1647 an ^ ^49) upon Thomas Dudley. 
Thus it appears that either Dudley or Winthrop presided 
over the doings of this congress whenever it was held in 
Boston during their lifetime, and that no one else attained 
to this honor. This is another confirmation of the firmly 
settled conviction of the Massachusetts people that Win- 
throp and Dudley were their two foremost men ; and, more- 
over, that their eminence was recognized throughout the 
other colonies and had a national significance ; for as 
between themselves they each received this honor from the 
United Colonies in equal and even measure. 

It was claimed that "the four jurisdictions had a popula- 
tion of twenty-four thousand, living in thirty-nine towns, in 
1642." The whole plantation was on this tenth day of May 
1 Mass. Hist. Coll., 2d series, v. 465. 



300 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

divided into four counties containing thirty towns. " In 
September, 1642, William Arnold, Robert Cole, William 
Carpenter, and Benedict Arnold, his company upon their 
petition, 1 were taken under our government." "And they 
are to see to keep the peace in their lands." 2 

These men were in conflict with Samuel Gorton and com- 
pany at Pawtuxet, R. I. Thus says S. G. Arnold : " A 
foreign jurisdiction was set up in the very midst of the infant 
colony, which greatly increased the difficulties of its exist- 
ence, and continued for sixteen years to harass the inhab- 
itants of Providence." It was the established course of 
Massachusetts in other places, such as Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, Connecticut, as well as Rhode Island, to receive under 
her jurisdiction and government people and districts of ter- 
ritory, although outside strictly of her charter limits, upon 
condition that such people or some portion of them desired 
her care and protection, and solemnly covenanted to submit 
to her jurisdiction and her laws. 

There was a reasonable cause for this. In the midst of 
enemies, she possessed the strongest and most conservative 
paternal government in New England, in which she was 
most strictly the representative English colony, and could 
not fail properly to take the deepest interest, and even 
control, in neighboring communities in which at any time 
disturbances might occur, the direct result of which would 
be injurious to Massachusetts. 

Neither could she maintain her essential ideas in politics 
and religion if she permitted them in the very beginning to 
be conspicuously assailed and remain undefended on her 
border, more particularly if the danger proceeded from her 
own disaffected citizens, who had entered upon another juris- 
diction only to secure a stronger vantage ground from which 
to attack her. 

We who live in a greater light, with more perfect laws, 
claim the right even now to regulate our neighbors, to enforce 

1 See, also, R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 101. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 26, 27. 



1642-43] MASSACHUSETTS AND HER NEIGHBORS 301 

Monroe doctrines and provisions beyond our borders, on the 
ground that our self-preservation demands the exercise of 
such liberty. Every civilized nation upon the globe assumes 
to dictate to other nations a policy which is consistent with 
its own alleged interest and safety. The present concert of 
Europe and combination of the great powers illustrates this 
freedom of the large states exercised toward the small ones 
in their own interest. 

But in this controversy between Massachusetts and cer- 
tain persons in Rhode Island the position of the colony is 
far stronger ; because at this time there was no government 
at Pawtuxet which anybody recognized, either under charter 
or otherwise, except that Plymouth now and then claimed 
jurisdiction over this territory, and as often surrendered it 
to Massachusetts. They had, as Gorton claimed, an alleged 
title to land from the Indians, and pitched their tents there 
without authority from England. 1 

Two sachems, Pumham and Sacononoco, from near Paw- 
tuxet, submitted themselves, on June 22, to the jurisdiction 
of Massachusetts, in a writing signed by them, with the fol- 
lowing certificate attached : " This was signed, after clear 
interpretation of every particular by their own interpreter, 
Benedict Arnold, in the presence of us, whose names are 
subscribed, and many of the elders and others," — John Win- 
throp, governor, Thomas Dudley, Richard Bellingham, and 
others. 

Winthrop says : " Sacononoco and Pumham having under 
them two or three hundred men, finding themselves over- 
borne by Miantonomoh, the sachem of Narragansett, and 
Gorton and his company, . . . did desire we receive them 
under our government, ... so it was agreed and they wrote 
to Gorton . . . how they had tendered themselves to come 
under our jurisdiction, and, therefore, if they had anything 
to allege against us they should come or send to our next 
Court. They invited Miantonomoh, who came to Boston, 
and being questioned in open court in public, whether he 
1 S. G. Arnold's Hist, of R. I., 176. 



302 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

had any interest in the said two sachems, he could prove 
none. Cutshamekin also in his presence affirmed that he 
had no interest in them, but they were as free sachems as 
himself." 

" Gorton and his company sent a writing to our Court, of 
four sheets of paper, full of reproaches against our magis- 
trates, elders and churches, of familistical and absurd opin- 
ions, therein they justified their purchase of the sachem's 
land, and professed to maintain it to the death." 1 

Winthrop says further : " Upon the complaint of the Eng- 
lish of Pawtuxet, near Providence, who had submitted to our 
jurisdiction, and the two Indian sachems there, of the con- 
tinual injuries offered them by Gorton and his company, the 
General Court sent for them, by letter only, not in way of 
command, to come answer the complaints, and sent them 
letters of safe conduct. But they answered our messages 
disdainfully, refused to come, but sent two letters full of 
blasphemy against the churches and magistracy, and other 
provoking terms, slighting all we could do against them. 

" So that having sent three times, and receiving no other 
answer, we took testimonies against them, both of English 
and Indians, and determined to proceed with them by force. 
And because they had told our messengers the last time, 
that if we had anything to say to them, if we would come 
to them, they would do us justice therein, therefore we wrote 
to them to this effect, viz. : — 

"To the end that our justice and moderation might appear 
to all men, we would condescend so far to them as to send 
commissioners to hear their answers and allegations, and if 
thereupon they would give us such satisfaction as should be 
just, we would leave them in peace, if otherwise, we would 
proceed by force of arms ; and signified withal that we would 
send a sufficient guard with our commissioners. For seeing 
they would not trust themselves with us, upon our safe-con- 
duct, we had no reason to trust ourselves with them, upon 
their bare courtesy, and accordingly we sent the next week, 
1 Winthrop, ii. *I20, *I2I. 



1642-43] CAPTURE OF GORTON 303 

Captain George Cook, Lieutenant Atherton, and Edward 
Johnson, with commission and instructions (the instruc- 
tions would here be inserted at large), and with them forty 
soldiers." J 

"The commissioner came to Providence and found the 
party of Gorton all in one house, which they had made 
musket proof. They undertook to parley," and then offered 
to refer their cause to arbitrators. The Massachusetts 
agents declined the arbitration for five reasons, which they 
set forth. 2 

A skirmish took place thereupon between the Boston party 
and Gorton and his followers, which resulted in the defeat of 
the latter. Only three of the Gorton party escaped ; he and 
the rest were captured, taken to Boston, and committed to 
prison. 3 Many attempts have been made in recent times to 
defend Gorton, and to present him as one of those unfor- 
tunate men who, being ahead of their age, and possessed 
powerfully with advanced and progressive thought, were con- 
sequently abhorred and persecuted by the Puritans, and are 
therefore justly entitled to be canonized and adjudged heroes 
in a humane and liberal era. 

Compassionate men have, consequently, too often con- 
demned the action of the government of Massachusetts in 
the Gorton affair. It is remarkable, also, that while Gorton 
has received so much attention, the little book by Governor 
Edward Winslow, which is an original and authoritative 
account from the Puritan side of the case, has not until 
recently been republished. Without this book the two sides 
can never be fairly presented. It is at present so rare that 
it can be consulted only by a very few persons. The title of 
this book is "Hypocrisie Unmasked." 4 Even Judge Staples 
had not found this book, nor had the use of it, in preparing 
his edition of Gorton's " Simplicitie's Defence." 

1 Winthrop, ii. *I37. 

2 lb., ii. *I39; Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc, ii. ill. 

3 Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc, ii. 190-202. 

4 Moore's Am. Governors, 123, 124. 



3 04 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

A stimulating inquiry is naturally awakened, why so many 
unimportant books written at that period have been repro- 
duced with so much care and expense, while " Hypocrisie 
Unmasked" has been suffered to go almost out of existence 
until recently. 

We are informed in " Hypocrisie Unmasked " that " Gor- 
ton lived for a time at Plymouth, 1 where his behavior was so 
turbulent and offensive both to the magistrates and others, 
as they were necessitated to drive him out of their juris- 
diction. From thence he went to Rhode Island, where he 
began to raise sedition and to make a party against the au- 
thority there ; for which he was apprehended and whipped, 
and so sent away. From thence (with some others whom 
he had gathered to his part) he removed to Providence, 
where Mr. Roger Williams then lived. He (with some 
others) opposed his sitting down there as an inhabitant, only 
in regard of his present distress, they gave way for his abode 
for a time. But being once housed, he soon drew so great a 
party to him, as it was beyond the power of Mr. Williams 
and his party to drive them out, or to rule them there ; as 
both parties came armed into the field each against other, 
and had fought it out, had not Mr. Williams used means for 
pacification." 2 

" Hereupon many of the chief of Providence sent mes- 
sengers with a letter to the governor and council of the 
Massachusetts, desiring aid against Gorton and his company, 
but they were answered, that not being within our jurisdic- 
tion nor confederation, we had no ground to interpose in 
their quarrels. 

" Soon after, some of those men tendered themselves and 
their lands to come under our government and were received. 
. . . The two sachems were as free as Miantonomoh, but in 
awe of him. Gorton and Miantonomoh conspired to cheat 

1 Hypocrisie Unmasked, I ; Morton's New England's Memorial, 136- 
138, 153- 

2 Letter of Williams to Winthrop, March 8, 1646, Pub. Narr. Club, 
vi. 141, 142. 



1643-46] THE CASE AGAINST GORTON 305 

Pumham out of his land. They secured his mark, but he 
refused the consideration when tendered for the land, which 
in Indian custom binds the bargain. 

" And Gorton and Miantonomoh abuse the Indians by 
taking possession of the land. And the Indians in distress 
tender their lands and themselves to Massachusetts. Mian- 
tonomoh appeared before the Massachusetts Court in answer 
to summons, and claimed these sachems to be his vassals, but 
it appeared clearly both by writing from Mr. Williams, and 
the testimony of some other English in those parts, and of 
divers other Indians no way related to them, that they were 
free sachems ; so as Miantonomoh having nothing to reply, 
the Court received the two Indian sachems with their sub- 
jects and lands under the government and protection of the 
Massachusetts ; and upon that writ to our neighbors of Provi- 
dence, intimating the same to them, and advising Gorton 
and his company, that if they had any just title to the land 
they possessed, they should come, or send some to show the 
same to the Court and offered them safe-conduct. They 
of Massachusetts waited under the constant abuse of Gorton 
against state and church one half year, and then took the 
advice of the commissioners [of the United Colonies], who 
upon testimony of their insolent and injurious courses, and 
perusal of the letter they sent to us, left them to us to pro- 
ceed according to justice. 1 

" Arbitration was impossible, first because they were in 
our power, second, because we were not parties, again they 
were no state or body politic, but a few fugitives living 
without law or government, and so not honorable for us to 
join with them in such a way of reference." Mr. Gorton 
came to the church in Boston and gave John Cotton some 
of his original thoughts as follows : " That in the church 
now, there was nothing but Christ, so that all our ordi- 
nances, ministers, sacraments, and so forth were but men's 
inventions, for show and pomp, and no other than those 
silver shrines of Diana." He said also "that if Christ live 
1 Hypocrisie Unmasked, 2, 3, 4. 



306 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

eternally, then he died eternally," and other speeches of like 
kind. He thought that " Christ was incarnate in Adam and 
was the image of God when Adam was created." 1 

"Their plea: i, Not within our jurisdiction. Ans., Were 
at least within the jurisdiction of our confederates who had 
referred them to us. If they were within no jurisdiction, 
then was there none to complain to for redress of our injuries 
in way of ordinary justice, and then we had no way of relief 
but by force of arms. 

" 2d, As to persecution, we did not meddle with their con- 
sciences except as they had discharged them at us. 

" 3d, As to the Indian lands, our title appeared good." 

The sentences given to Gorton and the others were in 
part as follows : "And to wear an iron chain upon one leg." 
We have introduced this quotation because it is often said 
that they were loaded with heavy irons, but it appears from 
this that it was only a chain. 2 Winslow says further, " We 
sent for their cattle to pay expenses, but left every of them 
a part for the support of their families." 3 Governor Wins- 
low asserts that Gorton was " opposed to magistrates every- 
where, 4 also that he was against churches, ministers, the 
Word of God, sacraments, repentance, and against Jesus 
Christ himself." 6 When Gorton had been whipped by order 
of Coddington, he said " Christ Jesus had suffered." 6 Wins- 
low says further that Miantonomoh had no right to the land 
as shown in Boston, and was not Prince of those parts. 7 He 
says that there was no ransom by the Narragansetts offered 
for Miantonomoh, 8 and that Miantonomoh was put to death 
in a house and not on a marsh, as falsely related by Gorton. 9 

The record of the commissioners of the United Colonies 
on the subject of Gorton, referred to above, is as follows : 
" Whereas complaints have been made against Samuel Gor- 
ton and his company, and some of them weighty, and of 

1 Winthrop, ii. *I43- See, also, Coll. R. I. Hist. Soc, ii. 236-240. 

2 See Hypocrisie Unmasked, 8. They had no secure prisons. 

8 lb., 9. 4 lb., 43. 6 lb., 47-49. 6 lb., 53. 

t lb., 69. 8 lb., 74. • lb., 80. 



1643-46] WINSLOW'S TESTIMONY 307 

great consequence. And whereas, the said Gorton and the 
rest have been formerly sent for, and now lately by the Gen- 
eral Court of Massachusetts with a safe-conduct both for 
the coming and returning, that they might give answer and 
satisfaction wherein they have done wrong. If yet they 
shall stubbornly refuse, the commissioners of the United 
Colonies think fit that the magistrates in the Massachusetts 
proceed against them according to what they shall find just ; 
and the rest of the jurisdiction will approve and concur in 
what shall be so warrantably done, as if their commission- 
ers." * 

The fact that the commissioners of the United Colonies 
" think fit that the magistrates in Massachusetts proceed 
against " Gorton and his company furnishes a strong sup- 
port to the action of the colony. These colonies were disin- 
terested. The able commissioners from the other colonies 
are joined with those of Massachusetts in review of all the 
facts and particulars of this disagreeable business, at the 
very time and in the midst of the turmoil, and the character 
of these men and the dignity of this court ought to lift this 
whole affair out of the disgrace which is attempted in recent 
times to be heaped upon Massachusetts alone, fastening upon 
her, so far as this influence reaches from modern critics, the 
charge of petty tyranny, bigotry, and selfishness. 2 Winslow 
was one of the commissioners of the United Colonies from 
Plymouth, before whom the case of Gorton was considered. 
This fact increases our confidence in his knowledge and 
judgment respecting the facts at issue. He was a party 
engaged in making the record of the confederacy already 
quoted. He was especially qualified from his judicial stand- 
point to write " Hypocrisie Unmasked," which book contains 
the force of his eminent character for ability and integrity, 
as well as the great weight of his position, all of which 

1 Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Plymouth Col. 
Rec, ix. 12. 

2 Moore says that Winthrop had " a standing such as no other New 
England man enjoyed." (Mem. Am. Governors, 129.) 



308 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvi 

things, set off against the capricious character of Gorton, 
leave little to be desired in defense of the Puritans. 

In order fairly to consider the incursion of Massachusetts 
soldiers into Rhode Island, and the claim of jurisdiction of 
the former colony there, we must first divest our minds of 
the present hard and fast State lines, and while regarding, 
indeed, the charter rights of that period, we must consider 
that Gorton and his company were only a few fugitives liv- 
ing without charter law, and if not within the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts or Plymouth, they were within no jurisdic- 
tion this side of England. 

We ought to remember, also, that the commissioners 
claimed that Gorton and his followers were within the juris- 
diction of their confederates, and that they were thus subject 
to their government. 

The records of the commissioners of the United Colonies 
show that while Plymouth claimed jurisdiction over the terri- 
tory of Rhode Island, she also approved of the conduct of 
Massachusetts in dealing with Gorton. 

We have entered very fully into this Gorton affair because 
Winthrop and Dudley were the prominent men who acted 
for and in behalf of Massachusetts in these matters, both 
in the General Court and at the session of the confederacy 
of United Colonies. If, therefore, there is any injustice or 
wrong-doing chargeable to Massachusetts in its treatment of 
Gorton, Dudley must be credited with a large share in it. 

Massachusetts, during all that early formative period from 
1630 to 1653, is the standard of substantial, firmly knit gov- 
ernment, obedient to the majesty of law, of order, and of 
supreme authority. She laid the foundation of her govern- 
ment on her charter on the common law of England, but she 
recognized the irresistible power of righteousness, of the 
higher law as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and sought 
always to be guided by those persons who were most learned 
and best qualified to instruct her. 

Dudley was, as we have said, a foremost leader in this 
ideal method of government, possessed of an unbounded 



1643-46] THE MISSION OF MASSACHUSETTS 309 

faith that they were building a permanent structure which 
would be remarkable for liberal political qualities, mingled 
with a strong Christian element, which could not fail to be 
the greatest blessing to mankind. This was not a mere 
vision. It is quite evident that the mission of Massachu- 
setts as a model in government in New England had a con- 
trolling influence in bringing order out of chaos, of preserv- 
ing from anarchy the settlements about her ; and that those 
States which are always manifesting unkindness towards 
her through the jealousy of their citizens, for intermeddling 
early in their affairs, have more reason to be grateful to her, 
that through her influence they were led forth, some of 
them slowly indeed, to stable government and honorable 
places finally in the sisterhood of States. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

We have already observed that the General Court was 
fearful of, and indeed expected, a general uprising of Indians 
under the leadership of Miantonomoh, the information of 
such a conspiracy having for a long time been reaching them 
through the different colonies and the friendly Indians ; and 
they had placed the colony on a war footing and put on 
watches night and day. Miantonomoh made war upon 
Uncas, the sachem of the Mohegans, without giving notice 
of his intention. Uncas was victorious in the battle and 
captured him, and by the rules of Indian warfare his life 
was forfeited and he was at the mercy of Uncas. Winthrop 
says : " The news of Miantonomoh's captivity coming to 
Providence, Gorton and his company, who had bought of 
him the lands belonging to the sachems who were come 
under our jurisdiction, wrote a letter to Uncas, willing him 
to deliver their friend Miantonomoh, and threatened him 
with the power of the English if he refused, and they sent 
their letter in the name of the governor of Massachusetts." 
This use of the governor's name seems to have been a for- 
gery on the part of Gorton. " Upon this Uncas carries 
Miantonomoh to Hartford to take the advice of the magis- 
trates there, and at Miantonomoh's earnest entreaty he left 
him with them, yet as a prisoner. They kept him under 
guard, but used him very courteously, and so he continued 
until the commissioners of the United Colonies met at Bos- 
ton, who, taking into serious consideration what was safest 
and best to be done, were all of opinion that it would not be 
safe to set him at liberty, neither had we sufficient grounds 
for us to put him to death. In this difficulty we called in five 
of the most judicious elders (it being in the time of the Gen- 



1643] DEATH OF MIANTONOMOH 311 

eral Assembly of the elders), and propounding the case to 
them then, all agreed that he ought to be put to death." . . . 
It was agreed that the commissioners from Connecticut 
" should send for Uncas and tell him of our determination, 
that Miantonomoh should be delivered to him again, and 
he should put him to death so soon as he came within his 
own jurisdiction, and that two English should go along with 
him to see the execution, and that if any Indians should 
invade him for it, we would send men to defend him. If 
Uncas should refuse to do it, then Miantonomoh should 
be sent in a pinnace to Boston, there to be kept until fur- 
ther consideration. The reasons of this proceeding with 
him were these : 1. It was now clearly discovered to us that 
there was a general conspiracy among the Indians to cut off 
all the English, and that Miantonomoh was the head and 
contriver of it. 2. He was a turbulent and proud spirit, and 
would never be at rest. 3. Although he had promised us 
in the open court to send the Pequot to Uncas, who had 
shot him in the arm with intent to have killed him (which 
was by the procurement of Miantonomoh, as it did probably 
appear), yet in his way homeward he killed him. 4. He 
beat one of Pumham's men and took away his wampum, and 
then bid him go and complain to the Massachusetts." r It 
appears that Miantonomoh was, as directed, slain by Uncas 
in the presence of the two Englishmen. Governor Wins- 
low differs, in " Hypocrisie Unmasked," in his description 
as to the manner of execution from the usual account of it, 
which he says was Gorton's story. 

It is only just in this case to the United Colonies to pre- 
sent their own decree from their own records, which is as 
follows : " The commissioners apparently see that Uncas 
cannot be safe while Miantonomoh lives, but that either by 
secret treachery or open force his life will be still in danger. 
Wherefore they think he may justly put such a false and 
bloodthirsty enemy to death, but in his own jurisdiction, not 
in the English plantations, and advising that in the manner 
1 Winthrop, ii. *I33, *i34« 



3i2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

of his death all mercy and moderation be shown contrary to 
the practice of the Indians who exercise tortures and cru- 
elty." 1 

Very bitter reflections have been made in recent years, 
particularly by the admirers of Gorton, upon the action taken 
by the commissioners of the United Colonies in the case of 
Miantonomoh. 

It is important to note in the very beginning that his life 
was forfeited to Uncas in open war, and next to observe 
that the United Colonies, not Massachusetts alone, declare 
him to be " a false and bloodthirsty enemy." That they 
have not the specific charges and evidence before the com- 
missioners to draw a clear indictment against him, and thus 
to arraign him and try him, is no part of this case. 

They were not constituted as a court for such a purpose, 
but they had had a long acquaintance with him, such a know- 
ledge of him and such direct reports from many sources, 
which Winthrop declares to have been reliable, that they 
certainly had a sufficient cause to turn him over to Uncas, 
with a provision that white men should see to it that no 
barbarous cruelty was inflicted upon him. It is necessary, 
in order to do justice to these men, to consider how many 
petty crimes and what small matters were then in Christian 
lands liable to capital penalty. 

They had lived under laws in England which had pro- 
visions for the death penalty attached to more than forty 
crimes. 2 Human life was not then regarded as important 
and sacred as it now is, or ought to be. And while the white 
men in New England exercised in general a remarkable for- 
bearance and kindness toward the Indians, properly enough 
their lives were not more important than those of the white 
men of the colony ; and if they were well satisfied that an 
outbreak on the part of the Indians was at hand, with Mian- 
tonomoh at the head of it, taking the part which King Philip 

1 Plymouth Colony Records, ix., Acts of the Commissioners of the 
United Colonies, n, 12. 

2 W. D. Northend's Bay Colony, 96-98. 



1643] THE JUDGMENT OF THE ELDERS 313 

did later, and they assure us with all the combined intelli- 
gence and character of all the colonies that such was the 
case, then they were justified in extreme measures as a mat- 
ter of self-preservation, and in doing the greatest good to 
the most important numbers and persons. 

We ought certainly, while we do justice to all, not to let 
our sympathies, even for the ideal noble red men, betray us 
into a cruel coldness against our fathers in the struggles in 
which they were engaged and in the perils to which they 
were exposed, with the regions peopled with savages in front 
of them, the ocean behind them, severed, as they were, from 
all hope of support or protection from their mother country. 
They certainly may be excused for having allowed some 
things, no occasion for which has ever risen in our national 
history since, and never will again. 

The elders, it seems, agreed that under the Mosaic law 
Miantonomoh's life was forfeited. We are not informed 
under what provision of that law they arrived at that opinion. 
There is no ground to impeach their judgment without more 
knowledge of the facts presented to them, or to assail now 
that code which belonged to a very early age in human his- 
tory, and which the fathers, however ignorantly, believed to 
be absolutely binding upon them in letter and spirit. It is 
interesting to note how many red men and white men of 
that period lost their lives for the most trivial offenses, 1 or 
for none at all, even this humane age recalling with little or 
no interest the story of their destruction, while friendship 
for Gorton and for the heroes of Rhode Island, the alleged 
home of soul liberty and unequaled personal freedom, has 

1 The persons who are so disturbed over the conduct of the Puritans 
in dealing with Miantonomoh show no interest in the share Williams 
took in the execution of the Indian Chuff, August 25, 1676, after King 
Philip's war was ended and all danger from Chuff had departed with 
it. Nor are they troubled in conscience that Williams shared in the 
proceeds of the sale of Indian captives in that war. Not that any 
action of Williams is an excuse for the Puritans, but it only is evidence 
that very good men at that time did things our humane age cannot 
approve. (Knowles's Memoir of Roger Williams, 347, 348.) 



314 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

exaggerated the importance of Miantonomoh in history, 
all the more because of the assumption that Miantonomoh 
suffered at the hands of the English from the dislike which 
they bore towards Gorton and everybody else who was his 
friend or ally, an hypothesis which is not proven and can- 
not be maintained with any success. As for the share which 
Dudley had in all this business, while we cannot commend 
all the action taken upon the highest Christian ideals, yet 
we may well believe that he adopted that expedient and that 
judgment in the case which, according to the light he had, 
his conscience approved, and there we leave him. 

As early as 1634 a very great difference arose between 
the governor and assistants on the one side, and the deputies, 
who were more numerous, on the other, upon the question 
whether any legislative action on the part of one might be 
properly and legally prevented and thwarted by the other. 
This aroused that ancient jealousy which in these modern 
times always exists on the part of the common people 
towards those in authority on the one side, and on the part 
of those in more stable position and long-delegated author- 
ity, lest little by little their prerogatives may be reduced or 
altogether taken away. 1 

This question took the form of the negative voice of the 
magistrates, and reappeared in a more vigorous form in 1643. 
But we must begin by an earlier explanation of a suit, out of 
which came most important results. Winthrop says, "At 
the same General Court there fell out a great business upon 
a very small occasion, Anno 1636, there was a stray sow in 
Boston, which was brought to Captain Keayne : he had it 
cried divers times, and divers came to see it, but none made 
claim to it for near a year. He kept it in his yard with a 
sow of his own. Afterwards one Sherman's wife having lost 
such a sow laid claim to it, but came not to see it, till Captain 
Keayne had killed his own sow. After being shown the 
stray sow and finding it to have other marks than she had 
claimed her sow by, she gave out that he had killed her sow. 

1 Winthrop, i. *I4I. 



1643] THE NEGATIVE VOICE 315 

The noise hereof being spread about the town, the matter 
was brought before the elders of the church as a case of 
offense ; many witnesses were examined and Captain Keayne 
was cleared." She then brought the case before the Inferior 
Court of Boston, and Captain Keayne was cleared again. 
Then it came before the General Court, seven days were 
spent in the trial of the case, and since there were nine 
magistrates and thirty deputies no sentence could pass with- 
out the greater number of both, and neither party had them. 
" For there were for the plaintiff two magistrates and fifteen 
deputies, and for the defendant seven magistrates and eight 
deputies." And because there was such laboring in the 
country upon a false supposition, that the magistrate's nega- 
tive voice stopped the plaintiff in the case of the sow, one of 
the magistrates (Winthrop) published a declaration of the 
necessity of upholding the same. 1 Winthrop says in 1643, 
the sow business not yet being digested in the country, and 
many of the elders being yet unsatisfied, "the question came 
before them and after serious and careful examination they 
reached the very wise and judicious conclusion that . . . they 
did not see any ground for the Court to proceed to judg- 
ment in the case, and therefore earnestly desired the Court 
might never be more troubled with it. To this all consented 
except Mr. Bellingham, who still maintained his former opin- 
ion, and would have the magistrates lay down their negative 
voice, and so the cause to be heard again. This stiffness of 
his and singularity of opinion, was very unpleasing to all the 
company, but they went on notwithstanding ... to recon- 
cile differences and take away offenses, which were risen 
between some of the magistrates by occasion of this sow 
business, and the treaties of Mr. Saltonstall against the 
council, so as Mr. Bellingham and he stood divided from 
the rest, which occasioned much opposition even in open 
court." 2 

The conflict between Saltonstall and Bellingham on the 
one side and the other magistrates is here manifested again. 
1 Winthrop, ii. *6g-*y2. 2 lb., ii. *n6. 



316 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

They seem, from jealousy, or from a desire to win popular 
favor, to be often on the side of the dear people against the 
magistrates, or in opposition in every contest where there is 
a conflict between them and the rich, or persons higher in 
social rank. 

It seems that " Mr. Dudley also had let fall a speech in 
the Court to Mr. Rogers of Ipswich, which was grievous to 
him and other of the elders. The thing was this, Mr. Rogers 
being earnest in the cause between the town and Mr. Brad- 
street [who was the son-in-law of Dudley], which also 
concerned his own interest [that is to say, the interest of 
Rogers], Mr. Dudley used this speech to him, ' Do you think 
to come with your eldership here to carry matters,' etc. Mr. 
Dudley was somewhat hard at first to be brought to see any 
evil in it, but at last he was convinced, and did acknowledge 
it and they were reconciled." It is certainly very refreshing 
to observe Dudley honestly declaring his real convictions as 
to the impropriety of the elders mingling in the action of 
the Court with the influence of their high office. We feel 
certain that he was right in his first position, and his acknow- 
ledgment must have been simply one of expediency and to 
secure harmony without the sacrifice of principle. He is 
the only one of the magistrates who seems to haye had the 
courage to declare the whole counsel of the gods to the 
elders. 

Winthrop says further, "The sow business had started 
another question about the magistrate's negative voice in 
the General Court. The deputies generally were very ear- 
nest to have it taken away." It was believed by the magis- 
trates that this would lead to an unavoidable change into a 
democracy if the negative were taken away, and after writ- 
ing several treatises and much discussion it was concluded 
to let it remain, as it has to this present time, with some 
modifications forty years after that date of sixteen hundred 
and forty-three. 

There was, it is evident, a strong feeling in the minds of 
Winthrop and Dudley and other founders of Massachusetts 



1643] DEATH OF MRS. DUDLEY 317 

against democracy pure and simple ; and from this it has 
been claimed that they had no conception of the great 
democratic republic which they were contributing towards 
founding. Winthrop says that " democracy is among most 
civil nations counted the meanest and worst of all forms of 
government . . . and histories record that it has always 
been of least continuance, and fullest of troubles." 

But there is a vast difference between a representative 
republic, with its organized system, its checks and counter- 
checks of one department of government upon another, 
even though all the departments are elected directly or indi- 
rectly by the votes of the people, and a simple democracy. 
The latter, if the citizens are not of the first quality in 
intelligence and virtue, a thing which has hardly yet been 
attained by any people in the history of the world, is a 
government liable to sudden outbursts of anarchy, without 
any conservative centralized power to control, and must be 
a very uncertain and unsafe form of government ; indeed, it 
can have no practical existence, and must be unwieldy except 
in very small populations and to a very limited extent. 
We therefore may well agree with the dread of the fathers 
of democracy, and can well understand why they sought to 
limit the franchise, and to retain government in the hands 
of experienced and efficient men of the colony. 

One thing is certain, that in the sow business the magis- 
trates triumphed ; they not only maintained themselves and 
the negative voice ; they also, as we have seen, secured the 
right to sit in a separate chamber ever after, and thus won a 
double victory. 

A sad bereavement came this year to Dudley in the loss 
of his wife, Dorothy. Mather says that she was "a gentle- 
woman whose extraction and estate were considerable." She 
had, during all these struggles, from the early part of the 
century to the day of her death, been the comfort and loving 
companion of Dudley. She had walked by his side through 
it all and taken her full share of the privations and suffer- 
ing which were a part of this great undertaking. She was 



318 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

the mother of five of his children. The most that we know 
of the merits of this excellent woman is found in her epitaph, 
written by her distinguished daughter, Anne Bradstreet : — 

AN EPITAPH 

On my dear and ever honored Mother, 

Mrs. Dorothy Dudley, 

Who deceased Decemb. 27, 1643, an d of her age, 61 ; 

Here lyes, 
A worthy Matron of unspotted life, 
A loving Mother and obedient wife, 
A friendly Neighbor, pitiful to poor, 
Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her store ; 
To servants wisely aweful, but yet kind, 
And as they did, so they reward did find : 
A true instructor of her Family, 
The which she ordered with dexterity. 
The publick meetings ever did frequent, 
And in her closet constant hours she spent ; 
Religious in all her words and ways, 
Preparing still for death, till end of dayes : 
Of all her Children, Children, lived to see, 
Then dying, left a blessed memory. 1 

This epitaph reveals the sympathy which Mrs. Dudley 
must have had in the earnest religious life work of her 
husband, proving herself a most faithful and appreciative 
companion. We may well feel from these lines that her 
government in her household affairs was so strong that 
she also proved herself born to rule as well as he. 

There is, moreover, a flavor of kindness and of tender 
charity for the suffering and the poor, which we most heartily 
believe was not borne by herself alone, but that it received 
the sincere approval and support of Governor Dudley as 
well, for it has been shown elsewhere that he had a heart 
full of sympathy toward his less fortunate fellow-creatures. 

It doubtless would appear to many persons that the mar- 
riage of Dudley to Mrs. Catharine Hackburn, widow of 
Samuel Hackburn, of Roxbury, only a little over four months 
1 J. H. Ellis's Anne Bradstreet, 369. 



1643] SECOND MARRIAGE 319 

after the death of his first wife, was too soon, and did not 
show a sufficient respect to her memory, or that tender 
thoughtfulness of her life work with him which would have 
been more creditable to his character. There are, however, 
often circumstances in life which may justify a course in 
these matters which otherwise would not be respectful or 
proper. And since we are not informed sufficiently we are 
unable to enter on any judgment in the premises, and can 
only fall back upon what we know of Dudley otherwise, and 
assume that he had what he thought to be good reasons for 
his peculiar conduct in this matter. It may also have been 
at that time a custom not to delay marriage, according to 
the present ideas. Life was more simple. There may have 
been a peculiar fascination about this widow, as we believe 
she married after the demise of Governor Dudley, with less 
intervening time. Governor Dudley had three children by 
this marriage. The most distinguished of these was Gov- 
ernor Joseph Dudley. Winthrop, after the death of Margaret 
Winthrop, in 1647, married his fourth wife about eight 
months later. 

We have dwelt upon the difficulty which grew up between 
Cambridge and Boston. It may have been that Dudley and 
Hooker were on the one side opposed to Winthrop and Cot- 
ton on the other. That is to say, there was a Cambridge 
faction arrayed against a Boston faction in politics. All this 
had long since disappeared, and Dudley and Winthrop, in 
the great constructive work of forming the government, were 
united, laboring together against all factions and all oppo- 
sition towards the onward progress of Massachusetts and 
her institutions. It is noticeable that nearly all writers in 
commenting upon the events of this period seem to consider 
the successes of Dudley as triumphs of the Winthrop party 
in politics. There is perhaps a natural tendency, without 
sufficient consideration, to include all the important services 
of Dudley in the great work of Winthrop without fully 
recognizing the former, who was, to say the least, a tower of 
strength and stability wherever he took part. 



3 20 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

But in 1644 the battle-ground had been changed. It was 
now a rivalry between the people of Essex and of Suffolk 
counties, between Ipswich and Boston. It was the Essex 
influence, no doubt, which gave to Endicott the governor- 
ship this year, displacing Winthrop. Ipswich was, next to 
Boston, the largest and most important town. Bradstreet 
resided there, who, although the son-in-law of Dudley, seems 
at this time to have been in political opposition to him, and 
Nathaniel Ward, who had prepared the draft of laws entitled 
" Body of Liberties," the first code of laws established in 
New England, adopted, as we have seen, in 1641. He was 
also the author of "The Simple Cobler of Aggawam," Aga- 
wam being the Indian name of Ipswich. Palfrey says that 
" the change now made [that is, of Endicott as governor and 
Winthrop as deputy governor, although they tried to intro- 
duce Bellingham] was a moderate one, but it indicated a 
reversal of the policy towards the rival Frenchmen [La Tour 
and D'Aulnay]. There was evidence of this, still more sig- 
nificant, when Bradstreet and William Hawthorn, the latter 
a young man rising into notice, were appointed to succeed 
Winthrop and Dudley as federal commissioners, while Salton- 
stall was designated to supply Bradstreet's place, in case a 
substitute should be needed. These were men of Essex 
County, except Saltonstall, and he was the fast friend of 
Bellingham. Winthrop was suspected of being unduly under 
the influence of the business men of Boston, in the favor 
which he had shown to La Tour. Palfrey says further, 
" Two hundred years ago it seems Essex men were thought 
to be aspiring to rule the colony, as fifty years ago ' an Essex 
junto' was cried out against for its alleged ambition to rule 
the commonwealth." 1 Thus the scheming of politicians, 
inspired with local self-interest, was manifested from the very 
beginning of the history of this mother of commonwealths. 

It was in 1643 that Parliament passed an ordinance to 
restrain unlicensed printing, which called forth the Areopa- 

1 Palfrey, ii. 156, 157; Winthrop, ii. *I7I, *I72; Mass. Col. Rec, 
ii. 69. 



1643-44] TOLERATION IN MASSACHUSETTS 321 

gitica of John Milton, which William E. Channing says, and 
the world agrees, was " Milton's most celebrated prose work." 
This was " A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, 
a noble work indeed, a precious manual of freedom, an arsenal 
of immortal weapons for the defense of man's highest pre- 
rogative, intellectual liberty." 1 

James Russell Lowell says, "that in this time in England 
every crotchet and whimsey, too, became the nucleus of a 
sect, and, as if Old England could not furnish enough other- 
wise-mindedness of her own, New England sent over Roger 
Williams and Gorton to help in the confusion of tongues. 
All these sects, since each singly was in a helpless and often 
hateful minority, were united in the assertion of their right 
to freedom of opinion and to the uncurtailed utterance of 
whatever they fancied that opinion to be. Many of them, it 
should seem, could hardly fail in their menial vagabondage to 
stumble upon the principle of universal toleration, but none 
discovered anything more novel than that liberty of Prophe- 
sying is good for Me and very bad for Thee. It is remark- 
able how beautiful the countenance of toleration always looks 
in this partial view of it, but it is conceivable that any one of 
these heterodoxies once in power, and therefore orthodox, 
would have buckled around all dissenters one strait waist- 
coat yet warm from the constraint of more precious limbs. . . . 
Williams, as was natural in one of his amiable temper, was 
more generous than the rest, but even he lived long enough 
to learn that there were politico-theological bores in Rhode 
Island so sedulous and so irritating that they made him doubt 
the efficacy of his own nostrum, just as the activity of cer- 
tain domestic insects might make a Brahmin waver as to the 
sacredness of life in some of its lower organisms." 2 

Yet even Milton later became a censor of the press, and 
he never would have granted liberty either to Popery or 
Atheism to propagate itself. He says, in his history of Brit- 
ain, " that liberty hath a sharp and double edge fit only to 

1 William E. Channing, i. 28, 29. 

2 Lowell's Prose Works, Latest Literary Essays, 94, 95. 



322 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvn 

be handled by just and virtuous men ; to bad and dissolute 
it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands." Thus 
the Puritans of Massachusetts were in substantial accord in 
spirit with the Puritans in England and with their greatest 
exponent. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

The civil war which was raging in England at this time 
was, as we have noticed, a subject of the deepest interest 
and solicitude in Massachusetts. Boston became almost a 
scene of battle between the two parties in May, 1644. There 
was in port at this time a Bristol ship laden with fish on her 
way to Bilboa ; there was also a Parliament man-of-war of 
twenty -four guns in the harbor, commanded by Captain 
Thomas Stagg. Captain Stagg demanded the surrender of 
the Bristol ship within half an hour, and prepared to fire 
upon her if she refused. There was a great assemblage of 
people upon Windmill Hill to witness the contest, but the 
Bristol ship surrendered without battle. Deputy Governor 
John Winthrop wrote to Captain Stagg asking his authority 
for his conduct. Captain Stagg produced his commission 
from the Earl of Warwick, which was sent to Governor 
Endicott, at Salem. This event created a great disturbance 
in the colony, because there were Bristol merchants here 
who felt it to be an outrage. The elders in their pulpits 
regarded it as an invasion of the liberties of the people, and 
even the General Court was forced to consider the advan- 
tages and the perils to which they were exposed by the 
adherence either to the Parliament or to the Royalists. This 
was illustrated at a meeting of some of the magistrates and 
elders, at which they gave some of their reasons and convic- 
tions why they ought rather to sustain the action of Captain 
Stagg : — 

" 1. Because this could be no precedent to bar us from 
opposing any commission or other foreign power that might 
indeed tend to our hurt and violate our liberty ; for the Par- 
liament had taught us that sains popnli is supreme lex. 



324 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxviii 

" 2. The King of England was enraged against us, and all 
that party, and all the Popish states in Europe ; and if we 
should now, by opposing the Parliament, cause them to for- 
sake us, we could have no protection or countenance from 
any, but should lie open as a prey to all men. . . . Upon 
these and other considerations, it was not thought fit to 
oppose the Parliament's commission, but to suffer the cap- 
tain to enjoy his prize." * 

We can well understand what a tremendous responsibility 
fell upon the most prominent men in Massachusetts at this 
time, when to make a mistake, either in one direction or in 
the other, might, as had so often happened in other nations, 
expose the colony to destruction from its enemies abroad. 
Nobody could tell at that moment which party would finally 
prevail in England, and thus they were exposed constantly 
to the uncertain fortunes of a foreign war, the issues of 
which otherwise were quite unimportant to them. We can- 
not overestimate the sound judgment and enlightened wis- 
dom which entered into their method and conduct in this 
crisis. We know very well that Winthrop, Dudley, and 
Endicott were here foremost, the great leaders so long as 
they remained in the colony. When they were gone they 
were succeeded by others whom they had educated and pre- 
pared to fill their places. 

Thomas Morton returned to this country in 1643, having 
done what he could while in England to disturb the relations 
between Massachusetts and the home government, and hav- 
ing there published a hostile pamphlet, entitled " The New 
English Canaan," and written a letter which was scurrilous 
and bad in the extreme. He was brought before the Court, 
sent to prison for a year, then fined a hundred pounds, and 
set at liberty. He was shown mercy, because he was old 
and crazy. He died within two years. There are persons 
who have expressed great sympathy for Morton, but he does 
not seem to have merited by his character or his conduct 
much more consideration than he received. He early for- 
1 Winthrop, ii. *i8o-*i83. 



1644] DUDLEY SERGEANT MAJOR GENERAL 325 

feited all right to the respect and confidence of the govern- 
ment of Massachusetts, and as her bitter enemy she was 
justified in holding him strictly responsible for his hostile 
efforts against her, for it was to her a matter of self-preser- 
vation, and her first duty to the extent of his importance 
and his influence. 

A new office was created in 1644 : Dudley was chosen 
sergeant major general, and was given the sole command of 
the militia, as fully empowered as the governor was at the 
head of the civil authority. Dudley was especially well 
qualified for this office, both by his early military career and 
by his long experience in the government. This appoint- 
ment and organization of the militia is another evidence that 
the colony felt deeply the need, because of the civil war at 
home and savage Indians all around, to be constantly in 
readiness to defend and protect itself. 

Great power was placed in the hands of the commanding 
general. He always had in the councils of war the casting 
vote, also the power to impress all materials and instruments 
fit for war. His commission says : " But for the ordering 
and managing of any battle in time of service, it is wholly 
left to yourself. Also yourself, together with the council of 
war, shall have power to make such wholesome laws, agree- 
able to the word of God, as you shall conceive to be neces- 
sary for the well ordering of your army." Indeed, he seems 
to have had no controlling power above him except the 
General Court, and was only limited in his actions as pro- 
vided in his commission by the council of war. 1 

"It is desired that the 19th of the 10th month shall be 
kept a day of public humiliation in regard of our native 
country, the prevailing of erroneous and corrupt opinions, 
the sore wars, and extreme wants of many there, with the 
weighty occasions in hand both there and here." 2 

This record indicates to us the troubles which afflicted 
the colony and gave great anxiety to the administration. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 77, 78. 

2 lb., ii. 84. 



326 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxviii 

It also shows, whatever we may think of it, the childlike 
dependence which they maintained toward an overruling 
Providence in all matters, both small and great. Their 
intense fear and dread of Anabaptists and of heresy leads 
them to bring the matter before the General Court, Novem- 
ber 13, 1644, and to place on record an expression of their 
conviction that these false religions, by their infection, are 
a danger to the churches and to the whole commonwealth. 1 

Richard Andrews and two ladies of London, England, had 
made generous donations to the colony, and accordingly a 
committee was appointed to draw, transcribe, and send a 
letter from the Court returning the thanks of the Court 
and colony to these benefactors. Winthrop, Dudley, and 
Hibbins were the members of this committee. At the same 
Court, the same committee were appointed to answer for 
the colony in all such occasions as may be presented to the 
Parliament concerning us or our affairs. 2. To receive all 
letters and other dispatches of public nature. 3. To advise 
the Court of all such events as may happen touching the 
colony. 4. To receive all moneys for other things due to 
the colony from any person in England, by gift or other- 
wise, and to dispose of them according to direction under 
our public seal. The appointment of this important com- 
mittee with such remarkable powers is conclusive evidence 
of the estimate which the Court then held on the character 
and gifts of its members. It is notable, first, that they are 
chosen to prepare with fitting words a graceful acknow- 
ledgment of foreign gifts, in the name and behalf of the 
Court, and that the members selected were the best qualified 
for this service ; and, second, that they were intrusted by 
their other appointment with the powers of a cabinet and 
the unbounded confidence of the General Court. 

The commissioners of the United Colonies gave advice 
that care be taken for the encouragement and maintenance 
of poor scholars in the college at Cambridge, and it is com- 
mended by the General Court that the deputies of the sev- 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 85. 



1644] ELECTION SERMONS 327 

eral towns shall undertake to do what has been done in 
some of the other colonies, that every family shall allow one 
peck of corn, or twelve pence in money for other commodity, 
to be sent to the treasurer for the college at Cambridge. 1 

A proposition was made, on account of the expense of 
" the over number of deputies, ... to have only five or six 
out of each shire, . . . and those to be prime men of the 
country." It was agreed that the magistrates should relin- 
quish the negative voice, if the deputies were reduced to the 
same number as the magistrates, but the towns refused it, 
and the change was not made ; and Palfrey says, " It was 
not till more than two hundred years after this time that the 
municipal corporations, as such, ceased to be constituents of 
the second house of legislature." 

It has been the custom from the very first, until 1884, to 
have an election sermon, so called, preached before the legis- 
lature by some eminent minister, at or near the time of the 
annual inauguration of the new legislature. The purpose of 
this, no doubt, was to give them helpful Christian advice 
and direction at their entrance upon the important work of 
legislation for the year ensuing. 

It happened in the year 164 1, when Bellingham was made 
governor, on account of the unpopularity, in part, of Win- 
throp, because of the favor which he had shown La Tour, 
that the deputies had chosen for this service Nathaniel 
Ward, without consulting the magistrates, who, on account 
of ill feeling between the two branches of the legislature, 
waived their own supposed right of appointment to this 
office. In 1644 the deputies ordered the appointment of 
Mr. Norton, while the governor and magistrates selected 
Mr. Norris. The magistrates again surrendered to the depu- 
ties, and Norton performed the service. Norris was the 
minister of Governor Endicott, and this was used politically 
against him at the election in 1645. The Essex junto, 
no doubt, was active at this election, but Bellingham was 
defeated, and they in turn succeeded in preventing the elec- 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 86 ; Winthrop, ii. *2i4- 



328 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvm 

tion of Winthrop or Endicott. Dudley was, however, elected 
governor, and Winthrop deputy governor, which was in effect 
the triumph of the Winthrop-Dudley party, and a return to 
the ancient trusted leaders. 

It was ordered by the Court on the fourteenth day of May, 
1645, when Dudley was for the third time elected governor 
of the colony, that "all youth within this jurisdiction, from 
ten years old to the age of sixteen years, shall be instructed 
by some one of the officers of the band, or some other expe- 
rienced soldier, ... in the exercise of arms, as small guns, 
half pikes, bows and arrows." This training was to secure 
their efficiency, even if they were destitute of powder. 1 

The Rev. John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, relates in 
his diary that the following anagram was sent to Dudley two 
days after this election. Eliot dwelt upon the opposite side 
of the street from Dudley, in Roxbury. As we have ob- 
served, they were excellent friends. Charles M. Ellis, the 
historian of that town, evidently inclines to the opinion that 
Eliot was its author. He says, " Eliot was guilty of dog- 
gerel. This is in his vein. And it is hard to see why he 
should have questioned the best reading of a line, or noticed 
such a thing at all, or written it out at length, unless it was 
his own." 2 

Dudley was then sixty-nine years of age. It has been 
inferred by certain persons whose esteem for Dudley is 
moderate, that these lines were sent to him, in his moment 
of success, by some insolent enemy, to temper his happiness 
and impede his joyousness. 

It is possible, and indeed far more probable, that his 
friend Eliot, whose uppermost thought was the theme of 
these lines, may have feared that the governor might not at 
this moment sufficiently dwell upon the nothingness of mortal 
affairs, and a little reminder, couched in words ingeniously 
composed from his own name, with a remote flavor of poetry, 
might arrest his attention. They probably had an impor- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 99. 

2 Ellis's Hist, of Roxbury, 104. 



1645I IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION 329 

tance in his estimation which it would be impossible for us 
to accord to them. 

THOMAS DUDLEY. 

Ah, Old, must dye. 

A death's head on you, you would not weare ; 

A dying head, you on your shoulders beare. 

You need not one to mind you, you must dye. 

You in your name may spell mortalitye, 

Young men may dye, but old men they dye must. 

Lord it can't be long > 

'T will not be long \ before J™ turne to dust 

Before you turne to dust ! Ah, Must, Old ! dye ! 

What shall younge doe, when old in dust doe lye, 

When old in dust lye ; what shall New England doe ? 

When old in dust lye, it 's best dye too. 1 

The paramount importance of education, both military and 
civil, had taken possession of the minds of these founders. 
Schools which have given, during the last two hundred and 
fifty years, immense force of culture to the mass of Ameri- 
can citizenship, and have contributed as much as anything to 
the unparalleled intellectual and moral influence of Massa- 
chusetts in the republic, were founded now ; while the noble 
public school system was created two years later. 2 

Winthrop informs us that " divers free schools were cre- 
ated as at Roxbury (for the maintenance whereof every 
inhabitant bound some house or land for a yearly allowance 
forever), and at Boston (where they made an order to allow 
•forever fifty pounds to the master and an house, and thirty 
pounds to an usher, who should also teach to read and 
write and cipher), and Indian children were to be taught 
freely, and the charge to be by yearly contribution, either by 

1 Hist, of Roxbury, 103, 104; Eliot's Records, Hist. Genealog. Reg., 
Jan. 1879. 

2 The historian of Dorchester, Mass., informs us that he believes 
that the " first public provision for a free school in the world by a 
direct tax or assessment on the inhabitants of a town " was made in 
Dorchester in 1639. For aught that we know, this may have been the 
pioneer movement in the most important concernment in the colonies 
next to religion. 



330 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvm 

voluntary allowance, or by rate of such as refused, etc., and 
this order was confirmed by the General Court [blank]. 
Other towns did the like, providing maintenance by several 
means." 1 

Savage says, justly no doubt, in his note to this passage, 
that " in her admirable system of free schools, or he greatly 
mistakes, Massachusetts is superior to all the rest of the 
world, unless those states, neighboring or remote, who have 
borrowed from her may divide the honor." 

We have elsewhere mentioned that the free school of 
Roxbury was established upon an agreement of citizens, 
at the head of which contract the name of Thomas Dudley 
appears. C. M. Ellis says that there " is reason to suppose 
he drew the agreement for the free school." 2 And the same 
writer says also, "Governor Dudley is supposed to have given 
part of the lot where the old schoolhouse that was sold, 
stood, opposite to Guild Hall. Both he and his descendants 
made very large donations to the school." 3 

This school still holds its rank among the very best schools 
in America. 

If we except the statute in the Body of Liberties, the first 
protest of Massachusetts against African slavery was issued 
in October, 1645, during the administration of Governor 
Dudley. We have no evidence that this philanthropic move- 
ment, in which Massachusetts was destined at a later period 
to take such a leading part, originated with Dudley, but the 
noble effort contributed to render his reign illustrious. 

The British policy at this period, and for more than a hun- 
dred years thereafter, was to establish the slave trade in her 
American colonies, and to secure to herself the spoils and 
the profits of this nefarious commerce. Massachusetts was 
powerless to resist her directly, but with her invincible love 
of liberty she wielded the reserved power that she retained 
to give freedom to the captive. 

1 Winthrop, ii. *2I5- 

2 Hist. Roxbury, 37, 39, 101. 
8 lb., 50. 



1644-45] SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS 331 

The Court directed Williams, 1 of Portsmouth, N. H., 
" that he forthwith send the negro which he had of Captain 
Smyth hither, that he may be sent home to [Guinea], which 
the Court doth resolve to send back without delay." 2 

The record of the same Court the very next year on the 
fourth day of November, in another case, is yet more effec- 
tive and certain. 

" The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the 
first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and 
crying sin of man-stealing, as also to prescribe such timely 
redress for what is past, and such a law for the future as may 
sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in 
such vile and most odious courses, justly abhorred of all good 
and just men, do order, that the negro interpreter, with oth- 
ers unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity (at the 
charge of the country for the present) sent to his native 
country of Guinea, and a letter with him of the indignation 
of the Court thereabouts ; and in justice hereof desiring our 
honored governor would please to put this order in execu- 
tion." 3 

1 " Boston, at the General Court, the 14th of the 8th Mo. 1645. 

" Mr. Williams : The Court understanding that the negroes which 
Capt. Smyth brought were fraudulently and injuriously taken and 
brought from Guinea, by Capt. Smyth's confession ; and the rest of the 
company hath resolved to send them back, and so doth desire that the 
negro which you had of Capt. Smyth be forthwith sent hither, that he 
may be sent home without delay ; and if you have anything to allege 
why you should not return him, to be disposed of by the Court, it will 
be expected you should forthwith make it appear, either by yourself or 
your agent, but not make any excuse or delay in sending of him. 

GOV. WlNTHROP. 

" Consented to by the deputies and the governor, because of the pre- 
sent opportunity to send him directly home by Major Gibbon's vessel. 

Edward Rawson." 

Boston, Jan. 28, 1898. Compared with the original and found cor- 
rectly copied, William M. Olin, Sec'y. (Mass. Archives, State 
House, Boston, Ix. 291.) 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 136. 

8 Winthrop, ii. *244, *245, and App. M. 



332 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxviii 

The fathers were sublimely consistent in cherishing civil 
liberty. Where in human history are there earlier or more 
decided utterances against slavery ? The nations of the 
earth were then indifferent to the evils or even the existence 
of slavery. 

Sir John Hawkins, in 1562, attained to the infamy of taint- 
ing British commerce with the execrable and barbaric traffic 
in men, and Queen Elizabeth to the reproach of having 
knighted him for this despicable service. 1 

Lord Mansfield, in the case of James Somerset, declared, 
though not the first time in the history of English jurispru- 
dence, that " the air of England has long been too pure for 
a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man 
who comes into England is entitled to the protection of Eng- 
lish law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suf- 
fered, and whatever may be the color of his skin. ' Ouam- 
vis ille niger quamvis tu candidus esses.' Let the negro be 
discharged." This decision was on the 22d of June, 1772. 2 

" Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ! 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall." 

Massachusetts, in 1641, guaranteed in her Body of Liber- 
ties that " there shall never be any bond slavery, villenage 
or captivity amongst us unless it be lawful captives taken in 
just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or 
are sold to us." 3 

Every child born in Massachusetts from that day has with 
its first breath drawn in the pure air of freedom, regardless 
of its parentage or the color of its skin. 4 

John G. Whittier has well said, " It was not the rigor of her 
northern winter, nor the unfriendly soil of Massachusetts, 
which discouraged the introduction of slavery during the 
first half century of her existence as a colony. It was the 

1 Mass. and its Early Hist., Lowell Inst. Lect., 198. 

2 Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, iii. 317. 

3 Body of Liberties, 10, § 9; Whitmore's Col. Laws, 53. 

4 Works of Charles Sumner, iii. 384; v. 281. 



1645] DOMESTIC SERVICE IN MASSACHUSETTS 333 

recognition of the brotherhood of man in sin, suffering, and 
redemption ; the awful responsibilities and eternal destinies 
of humanity ; her hatred of wrong and tyranny, and her 
stern sense of justice, which led her to impose upon the 
African slave trade the terrible penalty of the Mosaic 
code." 1 

The question of domestic service vexed these people as it 
does ourselves at the present time, for the spirit of demo- 
cratic equality at once seized all the English servants whom 
they imported, and made them immediately aspire to become 
prosperous citizens, rather than humble servants. Therefore 
it is highly creditable to the virtue and justice of the Court, 
that from principle they resisted all selfish and mercenary 
considerations. 

The temptations in this respect offered to individuals, as 
is evident in the literature of the period, were very great, 
and furnish strong side lights revealing a profound sense of 
justice and a steadfast integrity in the leaders of society and 
the rulers of the colony. We have, for example, a letter of 
Emanuel Downing, brother-in-law of Winthrop, illustrating 
the view already presented, furnishing to us a quality of him, 
however, which is far less humane and enlightened than the 
public sentiment of the community where he dwelt. He 
wrote to Winthrop this very year 1645 as follows : — 

" A war with the Narragansetts is very considerable to 
this plantation, for I doubt whether it be not sin in us, hav- 
ing power in our hands, to suffer them to maintain the wor- 
ship of the devil which their powwows often do ; truly, if 
upon a just war the Lord should deliver them into our hands, 
we might easily have men, women, and children enough to 
exchange for Moors, which will be more gainful pillage for 
us than we conceive, for I do not see how we can thrive 
until we get into a stock of slaves sufficient to do all our 
business, for our children's children will hardly see this great 
continent filled with people, so that our servants will still 

1 Wilson's Hist, of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 
1.7. 



334 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvm 

desire freedom to plant for themselves, and not stay but for 
very great wages. And I suppose you know very well how 
we shall maintain twenty Moors cheaper than one English 
servant." 1 Downing's exceeding need of Narragansett In- 
dians as merchandise is a refreshing argument, conclusive 
indeed that they ought to be preserved from devil worship. 

Pesecus, the brother of Miantonomoh, no doubt influenced 
by Gorton, continued with his allies to meditate war upon 
Uncas for a long time, but he was restrained from that pur- 
pose by the United Colonies. 2 

Hutchinson says that Uncas, being dismissed in 1638, 
"with a present, went home joyful, carrying a letter of pro- 
tection for himself and men through the English plantations, 
and never was engaged in hostilities against any of the col- 
onies, although he survived Philip's war, and died a very old 
man after the year 1680." 3 

This was the conclusion of the long, cruel war. A treaty 
was signed August 30, 1645, which was satisfactory to the 
commissioners of the United Colonies. The colonial army 
was disbanded September 4,, and that day, which had been 
set apart as a fast day, was triumphantly and joyfully trans- 
formed into a thanksgiving day and a peace jubilee. 

There is no known copy extant of Governor Thomas Dud- 
ley's thanksgiving proclamation, of even date herewith, nor 
have we any assurance that he ever made one. There was 
indeed subsequent trouble between the English and Narra- 
gansetts respecting the performance of the provisions of this 
treaty until 1650, but there was no war. 

The magistrates and deputies renewed their struggle re- 
spectively for power this year. The discontent proceeded, as 
usual, from the deputies, however. There was at the same 
time a strong feeling against the government, on the part of 
those inhabitants who had not been admitted into church 
membership nor received the privileges of freemen. 

1 Lowell's Among My Books, i. 262 ; Winthrop Papers, Mass. Hist. 
Coll., 4th series, vi. 65. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *I4I, *I54, *i65, *333- 8 Hutchinson, i. 142, note. 



1645] THE MAGISTRATES AND THE PEOPLE 335 

The newly acquired powers in their possession only excited 
these democratic representatives to extend the franchises 
already acquired by them. Enfranchised people are in gen- 
eral unhappy and turbulent until they are fully adjusted to 
their new condition, and discover the extreme boundary of 
their privileges. Macaulay has said, " In no form of govern- 
ment is there an absolute identity of interest between the 
different branches of any government." 

The ministers were invited to mediate in this dispute, and 
through their pacific influence a temporary adjustment was 
secured, lasting into the next year. The subject-matter 
was not the identity of that ever-recurring and notable swine ; 
the real issue and gravamen was still, however, the relative 
power of the two houses of the General Court, with the 
thought respecting the negative voice in the magistrates. 
Dudley and Bellingham, who were on opposite sides of the 
question of the identity of the sow, were hostile now, as 
usual, although they had once joined hand in hand as peace- 
makers, persuading the party who had justice on his side to 
yield his rights in the interest of harmony. 1 

Dudley was consistent in that earlier peaceful action with 
his usual conduct in his own private controversies, where no 
moral question was involved, but he could neither be seduced 
by bribery, nor be terrified by power, even of the British 
government, to depart one scintilla from his conviction of 
duty. Justice was to him one of the most sacred objects to 
be sought by intelligent Christian people. 

The magistrates and deputies became deeply involved in 
another dispute of similar nature, in which the people mani- 
fested a fear, as they had so often done before, that the 
magistrates exercised too much power, and that their liber- 
ties were in danger; while the magistrates were on their 
part as anxious, fearing that " authority was overmuch 
slighted, which if not timely remedied, would endanger the 
commonwealth and bring it to a mere democracy." 

This difficulty started in the town of Hingham, and in- 
1 Hutchinson, i. 144. 



336 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxvm 

creased in bitterness until it resulted in making direct 
charges against Winthrop, the deputy governor. The Court 
assembled in the meeting-house at an appointed day to hear 
the complaint of certain petitioners and deputies against 
him. 

The Standing Council for Life, composed of Winthrop, 
Dudley, and Endicott, possessed still the right of confirming 
the choice of inferior military officers. The council wished 
a vacancy in a company filled by the lieutenant. Winthrop 
became as usual the object of special vengeance on the part 
of Bellingham and Saltonstall of the magistrates, as well as 
of the majority of the deputies, and at once all the jealousies 
which the exercise of authority had created in the past 
between the two houses were fanned into a flame. Winthrop 
defended himself with great success, and finally made what 
he is pleased to call "a little speech" upon the subject of 
government in general, in which he set forth the liberty 
proper to the individual citizen, and the powers and duty of 
the government, in a very convincing manner. This speech 
has been referred to as a masterly production, involving a 
question of great general importance. 

We cannot overlook the fact that Dudley, in his long ser- 
vice in the different departments of government, was never 
subjected to a similar humiliation, although he was a mem- 
ber of this council for life. This was certainly not because 
he was less firm or less outspoken. Did he possess more 
tact ? Was he really more wise and "level-headed," in deal- 
ing with his fellow-citizens ? 1 

Hutchinson says, " A great disturbance was caused in the 
colony, this year, both as to civil and ecclesiastical govern- 
ment, from the people in general." 2 It seems that since the 
action of the magistrates was sustained, and the deputy gov- 
ernor vindicated in the Hingham matter the previous year, 
certain discontented persons, the most prominent of whom 

1 Winthrop, ii. *22i-*236; Grahame's United States, i. 272, 273; 
Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 114; English in America, i. 353, 354. 

2 Hutchinson, i. 145. 



i64S] THE EPISCOPALIANS' PETITION 337 

were disfranchised because they were Episcopalians, or for 
other reasons deemed sufficient, now made a direct and in- 
solent attack upon the existing government, which was begun 
here, but was intended really to accomplish its work in Eng- 
land, either by breaking down the authority of the magis- 
trates and the doings of the government, or, which was the 
same thing, by destroying it and placing in its stead a form 
of government direct from England, which was accomplished 
in 1684 by the destruction of the first charter, subverting 
the independent colonial government and its purposes. 

This work was begun really in Plymouth in the October 
term of 1645, but first appeared in the General Court of 
Massachusetts by what was styled a "Remonstrance and 
Humble Petition," etc., a copy of which may now be found 
in " New England's Jonas cast up at London," 1647, sup- 
posed to have been written by William Vassal, though bear- 
ing the name of Major John Child. W. T. R. Marvin, in 
his introduction to an edition of this book, called attention 
to the fact that this petition was presented at the General 
Court, May 19, 1646, "but before any action could be taken 
upon it, copies were extensively dispersed, not only in the 
neighboring colonies of Plymouth and Connecticut, but also 
to the New Netherlands, Virginia, and the Bermudas, where 
persons who were ill-affected to the government of Massa- 
chusetts could ever be found. The course of the petitioners 
excited great feeling, and not a little anxiety among the colo- 
nial leaders." * This was natural, because it was evident 
that the petitioners were attempting to secure the judgment 
of the other colonies against Massachusetts, and by indirect 
methods to control her action. This was true, as we have 
said, not only in this country, but it was intended chiefly to 
secure the attention of the home government. 

These people were Episcopalians, but there was also a 
Presbyterian influence centred in it from Hingham, of 
which Hobart was the chief exponent. The national reli- 
gion of England had now become, by action of Parliament, 

1 New England's Jonas, xxvii. ; Mass. Hist. Coll., 5th series, 148, note. 



338 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxviii 

Presbyterian. This undoubtedly increased the fears of the 
Massachusetts government. These petitioners appeared 
against the colony in England, but were met by Governor 
Winslow, its able agent. 

The petition was finally embodied in a pamphlet, as we 
have said, and brought to the notice of the government with- 
out any injurious results to Massachusetts, so far as appears. 
Winthrop says, " As for those who went over to procure us 
trouble, God met with them all." 1 

It has been sometimes thought that the resistance of the 
colony to Episcopalians at this time indicates that they 
were not sincere when they wrote from the Arbella, April 7, 
1630, to their brethren in and of the Church of England, 
that we " esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, 
from whence we rise, our dear mother." But they had 
received great light, and had great experience and responsi- 
bilities which taxed their utmost expedients in church and 
state since that day, during sixteen years of doubt and suf- 
fering. It is only needful to consider the progress and 
change in England itself during the same period, particularly 
in the mother church, to disarm strictures on the changes in 
opinions in Boston, Massachusetts. The state religion of 
England had gone from Episcopacy to Presbyterianism, and 
a powerful faction of it under Cromwell even to Independ- 
ency as rank as the Massachusetts sort. It may easily be 
admitted that Massachusetts led in the revolt for liberty 
against the church and state, and everything else. It is a 
way she always had. Archbishop Laud once suggested to 
send a bishop to her with "forces to compel if he were not 
otherwise able to persuade obedience." 2 It was feudalism 
in church and state that the Independents were at war with, 
in Episcopacy, Catholicism, and indeed in Presbyterianism. It 
was the responsibility of the individual church and individual 
man that they proclaimed in the ears of all the world. And 
this was the direct highway to democracy in politics, which 

1 Winthrop, ii. *32i. 

2 Heylin's Life of Laud. 



1645] FEUDALISM DESTROYED 339 

end of the way they did not at first so much regard in their 
religious zeal until Winthrop and Dudley found themselves 
in it, with no possible retreat, if at first they wished it. 
Harold the Saxon was at the front and feudalism in the 
rear. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

There was on the part of the government a deepening 
solicitude respecting the final results of the revolution now 
going on in England, and which was then far more nearly- 
approaching its end than was known at that time. How and 
in what way would it affect America ? And what wise mid- 
dle course would place the colony in the best position in the 
event of the success of either the Commonwealth or the 
Royal cause in England ? The Puritan side was earnestly 
espoused by America at heart, while prudence required the 
least action here until the result was attained abroad. Win- 
throp says, " Some malignant spirits began to stir and declare 
themselves for the king, etc., whereupon an order was made 
to restrain such course and to prevent all such turbulent 
practices, either by action, word, or writing." 1 

The Royalists and Parliamentary armies took the field in 
their last campaign of the great rebellion, in the May of this 
very year 1645, at about the time that Dudley was elected 
governor, and the defeat of Charles I. at Nasby, where he 
staked and lost the crown of England, took place on July 14. 
It is certain that the chief officers in the government of 
Massachusetts were weighed down with grave responsibili- 
ties respecting the colony, in the midst of a most perilous 
crisis. Dudley was again chosen, in 1645, a commissioner 
to draft laws. He had assisted in creating the Body of Lib- 
erties in 1 64 1, and in forming the Articles of Confederation 
in 1643, an d had been on most of the committees for con- 
structing laws from the beginning of the colony. This is 
very significant, and assures us still more of his importance 
1 Winthrop, ii. *2i2. 



1645] LAWS AGAINST BAPTISTS 341 

and standing among his contemporaries in early Massa- 
chusetts. 1 

The Puritans regarded the Anabaptists as equally danger- 
ous to true religion with the fanatical Familists of Miinster 
in Germany. Moreover, if their teachings on the subject 
of baptism were correct, the baptism, and administration of 
the same, upon which the church of New England rested, 
which also was one of the sacraments which was the gate- 
way to enfranchisement and political power, was void and of 
no effect. They might with reason regard the Baptists as 
determined on the destruction of their entire enterprise and 
policy. The Court refused in October, 1645, to alter at all, 
or explain its laws against Anabaptists. 2 This year of Dud- 
ley's gubernatorial experience had been an eventful one, in 
establishing educational institutions, in uttering a vigorous 
protest against slavery, in settling the old feud between the 
Mohegans and Narragansetts, and in the struggles between 
the government and the people and between the departments 
of government. 

It was also, as we have already observed, the period of 
the collapse of the British monarchy, and the culmination 
of the great rebellion. 

Dudley secured and held the esteem and confidence of his 
fellow-citizens this year as always before, as is well shown in 
many ways. The General Court passed the following order 
during the subsequent autumn : " The Court doth thank- 
fully acknowledge the good service our honored deputy gov- 
ernor [Thomas Dudley] hath done in the place of governor 
the last year [1645], and are not a little troubled that the 
pressing and many urgent necessities and necessary charges 
of this colony are such as to intervene between his deserved 
merits and the just recompense which this Court is used to 
allow ; but believing he is no less sensible of the premises 
than ourselves, we doubt not of his loving acceptance of so 
slender an acknowledgment, have thought meet to order that 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 109 ; Colonial Laws, 73. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 141. 



342 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxrx 

our honored deputy governor [Thomas Dudley] shall be 
allowed out of the next levy the sum of sixty pounds." * 

The Assembly of Divines met in the choir of Westminster 
Abbey, July I, 1643, and sat in the chapel of Henry VII., 
or the Jerusalem Chamber, until the autumn of 1647. In- 
deed, it never dissolved, but ceased to be in 1653 under the 
iron hand of Cromwell, the Independent, influenced in the 
order of its going at last by the same irresistible power 
which turned the Long Parliament out into the cold world. 

This assembly and the House of Commons sat, both 
bodies, September 25, 1643, in St. Margaret's Church, near 
the Abbey, and adopted a " Solemn League and Covenant," 
pledging the nation to the abolition of Episcopacy and the 
establishment of Presbyterianism in its place. The Com- 
mons usually was holding its sittings then in the Chapter 
House of the Abbey. 2 

It enacted an ordinance, January 6, 1643, that the "Book 
of Common Prayer be abolished." It created a system of 
rigid Presbyterian discipline, and set forth a Confession of 
Faith, which bears the name adopted by Parliament in 1646 
as the Creed of the English Church, and lastly a longer and 
shorter Catechism. 

But the home government could not secure unqualified 
obedience. Large numbers of English people adhered to 
Episcopacy and others of the Irish to the Roman Catholic 
faith; only Scotland was devoted, constant, and loyal, and 
to-day it is steadfast, immovable, always abounding in Pres- 
byterianism : while the Independents, who were desiring to 
escape from the restraints and dictations of arbitrary church 
government, and were more and more democratic in poli- 
tics, were rapidly gaining ascendency in the British army 
under Parliament. Presbyterianism was made to appear, 
perhaps justly, to this restless, seeking multitude of people, 
to be only a subterfuge little removed, in effect, from the 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 165. 

2 For a description of this assembly see Letters and Journals of 
Robert Baillie, ii. 107-109 ; Life of Bishop Sanderson, by Izaak Walton. 



1642] INDEPENDENCY IN NEW ENGLAND 343 

hierarchies of Episcopacy or of Rome. The coveted freedom 
was no more secure, they thought, under presbyteries than 
under bishops. 

It was quite different in America. The new Independent 
Church system had been on trial here many years before 
Presbyterianism became the national religion of England. 
Churches of the Independent order and states were merged 
and closely joined in their operations, so as to advance 
together with amazing success. Here at least the age of 
experiment was over, and there was every reason for keeping 
aloof from this unfortunate religious visitation and adversity 
which for a time overwhelmed the mother country. 

The influence of New England in restraining the progress 
of Presbyterianism in England, and in extending the system 
of Independency among her people and the rank and file of 
the army of the Commonwealth, was measureless. 

" Cromwell and Vane and Fieness and St. John used the 
tracts of Cotton and Hooker and Norton, and other New 
England ministers, as being for a thousand reasons the best 
weapons in their arsenal." 1 

"In the year 1642, letters came to Mr. Cotton, of Boston, 
Mr. Hooker, of Hartford, and Mr. Davenport, of New Haven, 
signed by several of the nobility, divers members of the 
House of Commons, and some ministers, to call them, or 
some of them, if all could not come, to assist in the Assem- 
bly of Divines at Westminster." 2 

Hooker was a very distinguished writer upon the subject 
of Independency, and was well prepared to maintain his cause 
before any body of men, but he was too wise to take part in 
a convention, the conclusions of which in important particu- 
lars he was certain ever afterwards to be forced to antago- 
nize. Moreover the assembly was of political origin, and the 
prudent policy for Americans, the very safety of their cher- 
ished institutions, both civil and ecclesiastical, had always 
depended upon severance from England. 

1 E. E. Hale, Mass. Early Hist., Lowell Inst. Lectures, 457. 

2 Hutchinson, i. 115. 



344 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxix 

Their independence in religion and politics, their refusal 
to allow appeals to the throne or courts of England, was the 
germ of our nationality developed in the Revolution. Hooker 
avoided in this spirit all foreign jurisdiction, and, with his 
associates here behind the eternal barriers of the ocean, 
while England was overwhelmed with her own calamities, 
proceeded to construct in America the ideal state, freed 
largely from the useless trumpery which has adhered to and 
incumbered old and worn-out systems of church and state. 
Thus they flourished, while the throne of Charles I. toppled 
over, and the British people " gart kings ken that they had 
a lith in their necks," amid the shattering of armies, the 
quelling of factions, and the overthrow of creeds in father- 
land. No Americans took part in the Assembly of Divines. 
Its Confession was adopted here ; its Discipline was re- 
jected. 

Winthrop informs us that in 1643 " there was an assem- 
bly at Cambridge of all the elders in the country (about fifty 
in all). . . . They sat in the college and had their diet there, 
after the manner of scholars' commons, but somewhat better, 
yet so ordered as it came not to above six pence the meal 
for a person. 

"Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker were chosen moderators. 
The principal occasion was because some of the elders went 
about to set up some things according to the Presbytery, as 
of Newbury, etc. The assembly concluded against some 
parts of the Presbyterial way, and the Newbury ministers 
took time to consider the arguments," etc. 1 

This synod at its last and important session, August 6, 
1648, approved of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but 
not the Presbyterian Discipline. It created what was called 
a Platform of Church Discipline, "to be presented to the 
churches and the General Court for their acceptance in the 
Lord." 

This action, it will be remembered, was ten years previous 
to the conference at the Savoy Palace in London, which 
1 Winthrop, ii. ^136, *I37. 



1651] THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM 345 

did similar constructive work for Congregationalism in that 
country in 1658. 

The General Court commended the Platform to the 
churches for consideration one year. Their prolonged, pa- 
tient, thoughtful deliberation was wise and exemplary, and 
after two years, in 165 1, October 14, they gave "their tes- 
timony to the said Book of Discipline that, for the substance 
thereof, it was that they had practiced and did believe." * It 
had thus been more than five years in coming to maturity 
and perfection. Governor Winthrop did not survive to wit- 
ness this final act of the Court. 

Governor Dudley and Increase Nowell were the only 
assistants in 165 1 who were present at the last meeting at 
Southampton, March 18, 1629-30; and Dudley and his son- 
in-law, Governor Simon Bradstreet, were the only assistants 
now present who were at the meeting on the Arbella, March 
23. These three persons are all that remained in the Court 
in 165 1, of the assistants who first met at Charlestown in 
America, August 23, 1630. It is quite certain that while 
Dudley lived his influence was far greater than that of any 
other assistant except Winthrop. 

We may therefore well conceive his satisfaction when at 
last the Court had placed upon New England Congregation- 
alism its final crowning seal and testimony. He might now 
with conscious joy and complacency review the beginning, 
progress through sufferings, and the outcome already before 
him in society, church, and state. He might behold with 
pride cultivated farms, thriving towns, and prosperous vil- 
lages. He could not then see, as we see, the transformation 
which in two and one half centuries was to compass the 
earth, and that that freedom to which they contributed so 
much would like leaven develop public thought and opinion, 
and that the chainless mind would in science, art, politics, 
religion, and in many things pertaining to human life, with 
irresistible force and sweep, change all things, creating 
almost a new heaven and a new earth for our abode and con- 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 285; iii. 177, 240. 



346 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxix 

scious existence here. Neither need we plume ourselves 
with undue pride and arrogance, for the end of human pro- 
gress is not yet. 

The government of Massachusetts was almost constantly 
disturbed by" the intrigues and scheming of persons in Eng- 
land, who had been here, and did not take kindly to Puritan 
methods or colonial justice, and possessed often an influence 
which rendered them dangerous to the colony and to its lead- 
ing citizens. Public affairs were in such a state of turmoil 
much of the time that it was possible for persons of little 
importance in themselves, being so far removed from the 
scene of the complaint, to do considerable mischief before 
the remedy could be applied to heal the injury. 

Gorton, Child, and others published tracts in England 
with the purpose of doing all that they could to weaken 
and destroy whatever confidence in Massachusetts and her 
methods and purposes the English people and government 
might entertain. 

The colony secured the valuable services and the great 
influence of Governor Edward Winslow as its agent in Eng- 
land, as we have mentioned, who did for it an excellent ser- 
vice ; and among other things prepared and issued two very 
comprehensive and valuable tracts in answer to those ful- 
minated against the colony and its proceedings. 

Winslow, 1 as he was departing for England as the agent 
of Massachusetts, to represent, among other services, the 
colony before the commissioners of foreign plantations, in 
answer to the petition of Samuel Gorton, of Rhode Island, 
and others, received from the Court a written answer to be 
used, also his own commission giving him authority and full 
instructions. 

1 Rev. John Eliot said in 1646, " Gorton found favor in England, 
having none to inform against him what he was, but Mr. Winslow was 
sent over, whom the Lord direct, protect, and prosper." (Hist. Gen. 
Reg., xxxiii. 65.) He says further in 1647, " God so graciously pro- 
spered Mr. Winslow's endeavors in England, against Gorton and his 
accomplices, that all their great hopes were dashed ; and they, among 
us, a little pulled in their heads, and held their peace." (lb., 238.) 



1646] PRIVATE INSTRUCTIONS TO W1NSLOW 347 

But his private instructions are far more interesting and 
important to us than the public instructions, as they reveal 
the real and genuine interpretation of their charter rights as 
the Court then held them. 

It is safe to say that no persons ever had a better oppor- 
tunity to know the facts than themselves, no one knew all 
the details more thoroughly, no one had more at stake in the 
issue, and they here express themselves to themselves, in 
simple confidence. 

They say, " If you shall be demanded about these par- 
ticulars : — 

" Obj. 1. Why we make not out our process in the king's 
name ? You shall answer : — 

" 1. That we should thereby waive the power of our gov- 
ernment granted to us, for we claim not as by commission, 
but by a free donation of absolute government. 2. For avoid- 
ing appeals, etc. 

" Obj. 2. That our government is arbitrary. 

" Ans. We have four or five hundred express laws, as near 
the laws of England as may be ; and yearly we make more, 
and where we have no law, we judge by the word of God, as 
near as we can. 

" Obj. 3. About enlarging our limits, etc. 

"Ans. Such Indians as are willing to come under our gov- 
ernment we know no reason to refuse. Some Indians we 
have subdued by just war, as the Pequods. Some English 
also, having purchased lands of the Indians, have submitted 
to our government. 

" Obj. 4. About our subjection to England. 

"Ans. 1. We are to pay the one fifth part of ore of gold 
and silver. 

" 2. In being faithful and firm to the state of England, 
endeavoring to walk with God in upholding his truth, etc., 
and praying for it. 

"3. In framing our government according to our patent, 
so near as we may. 

" Obj. 5. About exercising admiral jurisdiction. 



348 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxix 

" Ans. i. We are not restrained by our charter. 

" 2. We have power given us to rule, punish, pardon, etc., 
in all cases, ergo in maritime. 

" 3. We have power granted us to defend ourselves and 
offend our enemies, as well by sea as by land, ergo we must 
needs have power to judge of such cases. 

" 4. Without this, neither our own people nor strangers 
could have justice from us in such cases. 

" Obj. 6. About our independency upon that state. 

"Ans. Our dependency is in these points : 1. We have re- 
ceived our government and other privileges by our charter. 
2. We owe allegiance and fidelity to that state. 3. In erect- 
ing a government here accordingly, and subjecting thereto, 
we therein yield subjection to that state. 4. In rendering 
one fifth part of ore, etc. 5. We depend upon that state for 
protection and immunities as freeborn Englishmen. 

" Obj. 7. Seeing we hold of East Greenwich, etc., why 
every freeholder of forty shillings per annum have not votes 
in elections, etc., as in England. 

" Ans. Our charter gives that liberty expressly to the free- 
men only. 

" Obj. 8. By your charter, such as we transport are to live 
under his majesty's allegiance. 

"Ans. So they all do, and so intended, so far as we know. 

" Obj. 9. About a general governor. 

"Ans. 1. Our charter gives us absolute power of govern- 
ment. 2. On the terms above specified, we conceive, the 
patent hath no such thing in it, neither expressed nor 
implied. 3. We had not transported ourselves and our fam- 
ilies upon such terms. 4. Other plantations have been 
undertaken at the charge of others in England, and the 
planters have their dependence upon the companies there, 
and those planters go and come chiefly for matter of profit ; 
but we come to abide here, and to plant the gospel, and 
people the country, and herein hath God marvelously blessed 
us." 1 

1 Winthrop, ii. *296-*30i. 



1646] VISITATION OF CATERPILLARS 349 

This short catechism presents the position of the Puritans 
and their charter rights with more clearness and force than 
many pages of authors in this immediate period, who have 
had much to say about the subject which appeared to be 
wise and true to them, no doubt, but which was probably 
neither. 

The firm and abiding friendship of Cromwell and of the 
Independents in England was an impediment that neither 
hatred, revenge, nor jealousy could remove or do away with, 
and it served until the colony had passed its first generation 
of adolescence, and in its mature independence asked for no 
parental tenderness towards it. 

It was provided by the Court early in this year, whether 
wisely or not, persons will differ, " that it shall be lawful for 
any man that is on his journey (and remote from any house 
five miles) to take tobacco, so that thereby he sets not the 
woods on fire to the damage of any man." * 

The early records of Roxbury, the home of Dudley, fur- 
nish us an account of what may have been a visitation by 
the army worm, which occurred in 1646. " This year, about 
the end of the Fifth Month, we had a very strong hand of 
God upon us, for upon a sudden innumerable armies of cat- 
erpillars filled the country all over all the English planta- 
tions, which devoured some whole meadows of grass, and 
greatly devoured barley, being the most grown, and tender 
corn, eating off all the blades and beards, but left the corn, 
only many ears they quite eat off by eating the green straw 
asunder below the ear, so that barley was generally half 
spoiled ; likewise they much hurt wheat, by eating the 
blades off, but wheat had the less hurt because it was a little 
forwarder than barley, or harder and dryer, and they less 
meddled with it. As for rye, it was so hard and near ripe, 
that they touched it not. But above all grains they devoured 
oats. And in some places they fell upon Indian corn, and 
quite devoured it ; in other places they touched it not. They 
would cross highways by one thousand. 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 151. 



35° THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxix 

" Much prayer there was made to God about it, and fasting 
in divers places, and the Lord heard, and on a sudden took 
them all away again in all parts of the country, to the won- 
derment of all men. It was the Lord, for it was done sud- 
denly." 1 This record continues to be interesting. It informs 
us that "this winter of 1646 was one of the mildest we ever 
had ; no snow all winter long ; nor sharp weather. We never 
had a bad day to go preach to the Indians all this winter, 
praised be the Lord." 2 

The New England colonies were for a long time disturbed 
with encroachments of the French on the north and east, 
and not much less by the Dutch on the west, and were at 
the same time required to give constant attention to the 
Indians all about them. 

There were two rival French governors of Acadia, which 
included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and a part of Maine. 
Their names were La Tour and D'Aulnay. They both 
claimed high authority from the French government, assur- 
ing the Court of Massachusetts that they were each able to 
be of great service to them, or, on the other hand, most dan- 
gerous enemies, with the throne of France to enforce their 
mischievous designs. 

La Tour pretended to be a Huguenot to gain his points 
with the Puritans, but he had not religion enough of any 
sort to embarrass his work in wickedness. They both in 
turn at different times were entertained with distinguished 
honor by the authorities in Boston, as the representatives of 
a powerful European state, and neighbors whose friendship 
and commercial importance demanded the attention of the 
public, with the bestowal of every civility and considerate 
courtesy. They both betrayed the confidence reposed in 
them. They both managed to keep Massachusetts in a state 
of anxiety by charging her with too great attentions to the 
interests of the other man. 

The issue finally entered the politics of the colony. The 

1 C. M. Ellis's Hist, of Roxbury, 7$, 76. 

2 lb., 76. 



1646] D'AULNAY AND LA TOUR 351 

agricultural and country people thought that Boston, in its 
over-zeai for traffic, was making far too intimate " friends of 
the mammon of unrighteousness," Popish idolaters. They 
had no confidence in the foreigners, nor in the worldly wis- 
dom which cultivated their friendship. Winthrop lost pop- 
ularity in the country, and was forced to bear the reproach 
of neglecting the rest of the colony while he fostered the 
commerce of Boston. 

La Tour appears first in our history in 1633, and one or 
the other comes into the foreground frequently during the 
succeeding fifteen years. Finally D'Aulnay died, after he 
had ruined La Tour and blasted his prosperity, but La Tour 
married the widow of D'Aulnay and secured the wealth of 
his enemy and his own. This recalls the south sea island 
cannibal who quieted his title to real estate by consuming 
the man who was in possession before. 

No portion of this account, as we have said, of the doings 
of the fathers of Massachusetts in their intercourse with 
these two Frenchmen is of greater historic significance than 
the self-contained manner in which they assumed absolute 
and sovereign authority to treat with the agents of a foreign 
state without the least thought of the home government, and 
without, so far as we know, ever reporting their doings in 
the premises to her, or recognizing any duty whatever to do 
so. Thus one event after another reveals to us that soon or 
late, the rupture and severance from England would be in- 
evitable. They were already acting the part of an independ- 
ent state, and this was certain to be only preliminary to the 
creation of the state itself. 

Dudley had a commission, with other persons from the 
General Court, to proceed as agent or minister plenipoten- 
tiary to the home and country of D'Aulnay at Penobscot, 
and make treaties of settlement and of peace respecting all 
matters in dispute. D'Aulnay regarded very greatly the 
dignity and high official standing of these commissioners, 
and was now certain that Massachusetts intended to accom- 
plish something, and perfect the treaties. He would accept, 



352 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxix 

he said, the honor and courtesy, and not requiring the visit 
to himself would send his agents to Boston instead, with 
authority to make the treaties, which he accordingly did 
after some delay. It is said that he changed the place of 
meeting to Boston adroitly, to avoid the heavy expense 
of entertaining these dignitaries in a manner equal to his 
own former hospitable receptions in the capital of Massa- 
chusetts. 

It is evident that the Court considered this mission im- 
portant, since they appointed almost their leading man, at 
seventy years of age, to go to Penobscot to be exposed to 
the peril of capture, and to other dangers. 

The words of the Court are charged with affectionate 
regard and appreciation. They say, " We have hereby au- 
thorized and appointed our much honored and right trusty 
and well beloved Thomas Dudley, Esq., the deputy governor 
of this jurisdiction," etc. And later they say, "This Court 
considering that the deputy governor, in regard of his age, 
may (through sickness, or other bodily infirmity) be disabled 
for the voyage at such time as the commissioners are to go 
to Penobscot, in which event his son-in-law, Governor Simon 
Bradstreet, is to be his substitute." 1 

We cannot reflect upon the exposure of Boston to the 
guns of these French ships, with their unscrupulous and 
piratical commanders, and call to mind other visitors at other 
times of the same evil quality, without appreciating the fore- 
sight and wisdom of Dudley in desiring to place the capital 
interior, at Cambridge, until they were strong enough to 
fortify the harbor of Boston against the artillery of Europe. 
Winthrop evidently regarded their escape from these rovers 
of the sea as quite remarkable. 2 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 158, 159. 

2 The following quotation from a letter of Governor Edward Wins- 
low of Plymouth to Winthrop shows how much both colonies regarded 
and relied on Dudley : " I trust when Mr. Dudley goeth to Mr. D'Aul- 
nay, he will put an end also to our controversy with him, and make 
but one work of both. . . . Yours as ever, Edward Winslow." 
(Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vi.) 



CHAPTER XXX 

The earnestness and sincerity of the Puritan fathers in 
soundness of the faith, enlightened by thorough scholarship, 
is marked and everywhere evident in their work. To their 
credit be it said, they planted the tree of knowledge in church 
and state, for the saving of society. 

They laid, with patriotic, religious fervor, the groundwork 
of fair Harvard, and of the New England common schools, 
which, like the mid-day sun of August that clears the morn- 
ing mists, swept in time from their broad foundations the 
dust of superstition, inseparable from their age. 

They say in 1646, "This Court, being sensible of the 
necessity and singular use of good literature in managing 
the things of greatest concernment in this commonwealth, 
as also perceiving the fewness of persons accomplished to 
such employments, especially for future times [let us with 
grateful veneration regard these words], have thought meet 
to propose to all and every of reverend elders and brethren, 
that due care be had from time to time to improve and exer- 
cise such students, especially in divinity, as through the 
good hand of God may issue forth of the colleges, that so 
for want of employment or maintenance they be not forced 
from us, and we left destitute of help that way." x 

It is far more satisfactory, in attempting to study the 
thoughts and methods of any people, to let them speak for 
themselves. The following extracts from the records of the 
commissioners of the United Colonies in 1646 seem to be 
instructive. These words are not the expressed opinions of 
Massachusetts alone, but of the confederacy. 

"Upon serious consideration of the spreading nature of 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 167. 



354 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

error, the dangerous growth, and effects thereof in other 
places, and particularly how the purity and power, both of 
religion and of civil order, is already much complained (cor- 
rupted) if not wholly lost in a part of New England by a 
licentious liberty granted and settled, whereby many, casting 
off the rule of the word, profess and practice what is good 
in their own eyes ; and upon information of what petitions 
have been lately put up in some of the colonies, against the 
good and strait ways of Christ, both in the churches and in 
the commonwealth, the commissioners remembering that 
those colonies, for themselves and their posterity, did enter 
into this firm and perpetual league, as for other respects, so 
for mutual advice, that the truth and liberties of the gospel 
might be preserved, and propagated, thought it their duty 
seriously to commend it to the care and consideration of 
each General Court within these United Colonies, that as 
they have laid their foundations and measured the temple of 
God, the worship and worshipers by that strait reed God 
hath put into their hands, so they would walk on and build 
up (all discouragements and difficulties notwithstanding) 
with an undaunted heart, an unwearied hand, according to 
the same rules and patterns. 

" That a due watch be kept and continued at the doors of 
God's house, that none be admitted as members of the body 
of Christ but such as hold forth effectual calling and thereby 
union with Christ the head, and that those whom Christ hath 
received are to enter by an express covenant to attend and 
observe the laws and duties of that spiritual corporation, that 
Baptism, the seal of the covenant, be administered only to 
such members and their immediate seed, that Anabaptism, 
Familism, Antinomianism, and generally all errors of like 
nature which oppose and undermine, and slight either the 
Scriptures, the Sabbath, or other ordinances of God, and 
bring in and cry up unwarranted revelations, inventions of 
men, or any carnal liberty, under a deceitful color of liberty 
of conscience, may be seasonably and duly suppressed, 
though they wish as much forbearance and respect may be 



1646] HISTORIC RECORDS 355 

had of tender conscience seeking light as may stand with 
the purity of religion and peace of the churches. (The com- 
missioners of Plymouth desire further consideration concern- 
ing this advice given to the General Courts.) 

"And lastly, that some serious provision be speedily made 
against oppression, whether in commodities or wages, against 
excess and disorder in apparel, drink, and all other loose and 
sinful miscarriages not fit to be named amongst Christians, 
by which the name of our holy God is much dishonored, and 
the churches of Christ in those parts are much reproached, 
as if they were strict in their forms only, or had respect only 
to one of the tables of God's law, their fruits in reference to 
the other being nothing better than the wild vines and bram- 
bles in the wilderness. 

" If thus we be for God, he will certainly be with us. And 
though the God of the world (as he is styled) be worshiped, 
and by usurpation set upon his throne, in the main the 
greatest part of America, yet this small part and portion may 
be vindicated as by the right hand of Jehovah, and justly 
called Emanuel's land." 

The foregoing conclusions were agreed upon by the com- 
missioners of the United Colonies, September 18, 1646. 1 

The following words, by the same commissioners, at the 
same time, are full of experience, pathos, and beauty, which 
must appeal to the heart of every American : — 

" Whereas our good God hath from the first done great 
things for his people in these colonies, in sundry respects 
worthy to be written in our hearts, with a deep and charac- 
tered impression not to be blotted out and forgotten, and to 
be transmitted to posterity, that they may know the Lord, 
and how he hath glorified his grace and mercy in our foun- 
dations and beginnings, that they also may trust in him, 
and walk with a right foot before him without warping and 
declining. It is desired by the commissioners, that all the 
colonies (as they may) would collect and gather up the many 
special providences of God towards them, since their arrival 
1 Plymouth Col. Rec, ix. 81, 82. 



356 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

and settling in these parts, how he hath made room for them, 
how his hand hath been with them in laying their founda- 
tions in church and commonwealth, how he hath cast the 
dread of his people (weak in themselves) upon the Indians, 
and scattered their counsels, broken their plots and attempts, 
and continued our peace (notwithstanding their insolences, 
rage, and malice), made glorious provisions for us, and in all 
respects hath been a sun and shield to us, and that memo- 
rials being made, they may be duly communicated and seri- 
ously considered, that no thing be mistaken, but that history 
may be compiled according to truth with due weight, by 
some able and fit man appointed thereunto." 1 

As we follow these statements of their anxieties and hopes, 
as these Puritans themselves recount them, we instinctively 
turn back to the beginnings of the colony, and to those 
pathetic recitals of Dudley himself in the most important 
letter in early American history. 

" If any come hither to plant for worldly ends, that can 
live well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon 
repent him. ... In a word we have little to be envied ; but 
endure much to be pitied, in the sickness and mortality of 
our people." And then says Mr. Justice Story : " In the 
conclusion of this letter, he breaks out with the unconquer- 
able spirit of Puritanism. ' We are left, a people poor and 
contemptible, yet such as trust in God ; and are contented 
with our own condition, being well assured, that he will not 
fail us, nor forsake us.' " Judge Story continues, after re- 
counting these words of Dudley, " Men who were thus pre- 
pared to encounter such distresses, were prepared for every- 
thing. The stake had no terrors for them ; and earth had 
no rewards which could, for a moment, withdraw them from 
the dictates of conscience and duty." He says further, 
"They laid the foundations of empire in these northern 
regions, with slow and thoughtful labor. Our reverence for 
their services should rest, not upon the fictions of fancy, but 
upon a close survey of their means and their ends, their 
1 Plymouth Col. Rec. ix. 82. 



1646] THE PURITANS WERE CALVINISTS ZS7 

motives and their lives, their characters and their actions. 
And I am much mistaken, if that close survey does not in- 
vigorate our patriotism, confirm our principles, and deepen 
and widen the channels of our gratitude." 1 

Our Puritan fathers were steadfast Calvinists, who are 
finely described by James Anthony Froude : " These men 
were possessed of all the qualities which give nobility and 
grandeur to human nature — men whose life was as upright 
as their intellect was commanding, and their public aims 
untainted with selfishness ; unalterably just where duty re- 
quired them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a woman 
in their hearts ; frank, true, cheerful, humorous, as unlike 
sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in 
some way to sound the keynote to which every brave and 
faithful heart in Europe instinctively vibrated. This is the 
problem, grapes do not grow on bramble-bushes." 2 

The Court informs us that " one end in planting these 
parts was to propagate the true religion unto the Indians." 3 
This worthy object was the cause, no doubt, of the following 
statute : — 

" It is ordered decreed by this Court, that no Indian shall 
at any time powwow, or perform outward worship to their 
false gods, or to the devil, in any part of our jurisdiction, 
whether they be such as dwell here, or shall come hither. 
If any shall transgress this law, the powwower to pay five 
pounds, the procurer five pounds, and every assistant coun- 
tenancing, by his presence or otherwise (being of age of dis- 
cretion), twenty shillings." 4 

The Court proceeds next to make a declaration more lib- 
eral and full of soul liberty than they have been represented 
as having entertained : " Though no human power be Lord 
over the faith and consciences of men, and therefore may 
not constrain them to believe or profess against their con- 
science, yet, because such as bring in damnable heresies, 

1 Centennial Discourse, 46, 49. 

2 " Calvinism," in Short Studies on Great Subjects, 2d series, xiv. 52. 

3 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 178. 4 lb., ii. 177. 



358 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

tending to the subversion of the Christian faith, and the 
destruction of the souls of men, ought duly to be restrained 
from such notorious impiety. . . . Forasmuch as in these 
countries, where the churches of Christ are seated, the pro- 
sperity of the civil state is much advanced and blessed of God, 
when the ordinances of true religion and public worship of 
God do find free passage in purity and peace, therefore, 
though we do not judge it meet to compel any to enter into 
the fellowship of the church, nor force them to partake in 
the ordinances peculiar to the church (which do require vol- 
untary subjection thereunto), yet, seeing that the word is 
of general and common behoof to all sorts of people, as 
being the ordinary means to subdue the hearts of hearers, 
not only to the faith, and obedience to the Lord Jesus, but 
also to civil obedience, and allegiance unto magistracy, and 
to just and honest conversation towards all men — it was 
ordered, therefore, that all persons must attend where 
churches are established." 1 

There can be no doubt that such laws in this age in any 
civilized country would be resisted as an invasion of the 
domain of personal liberty and of natural, inalienable human 
privilege of choice and conduct. And yet when we have 
said that, we feel somehow a deep sympathy with the fun- 
damental thought and purpose of these persons. We may 
reject their methods, but we should be glad to see a state in 
this world where religious principles with a lively execution 
of the golden rule dominated politics ; and self-seeking on the 
part of persons who hold sacred trusts of power should never 
be allowed to antagonize the public interest or the welfare of 
constituents. 

Priestcraft is the worst element in politics, because a wolf 
in sheep's clothing is a concealed peril ; but pure and unde- 
fined religion is the tremendous need to-day to resist and 
neutralize political corruption everywhere. For view it as 
we will, the Puritans were correct, that religion and the state 
are not to be sundered. Human society itself, indeed, is 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 177, 178. 



1646] HARSH LAWS AND CHILDREN 359 

inseparable from religion. The great leaders in our national 
struggles have been noble, godlike, religious men, of firm 
principle, founded on the Eternal, and the people could and 
did trust them, and were not betrayed by greed or petty per- 
sonal ambition, heedless of the public welfare. No ! religion 
is the chief cornerstone of the state, and the Puritans knew 
it as well as we do, and possibly better. Their methods and 
means were somewhat rigid and arbitrary, but their thought 
that righteousness exalteth a nation was essential ; and 
human government, after ages of experience in the devious 
cycles of error and municipal corruptions, will in the end 
find much to admire in the simple integrity and steadfast 
honor of these immortal founders of New England. 

It is certainly questionable whether, of all the harsh laws 
made by these stern people, the following does not mark, 
with more striking contrast than any other, the difference 
between public sentiment then, respecting the relation of 
parents to children, and their bearing toward them now, in 
this humane, submissive, and tender age, wherein blooming 
youth rule the court, the camp, almost from their cradle to 
the final demise of their father and mother : — 

" If any child or children, above sixteen years old, and of 
sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural 
father or mother, he or she shall be put to death." Unless 
certain faults named were attached to the parent. "If a 
man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years 
and understanding, namely, sixteen, which will not obey the 
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when 
they have chastened him will not hearken unto them, then 
shall his father and mother, being his natural parents, lay 
hold on him, and bring him to the magistrates, assembled in 
Court, and testify unto them, by sufficient evidence, that 
this their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey 
their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious 
crimes, such a son shall be put to death." 1 

The most cheerful feature about these laws is that they 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 179, 180. 



360 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

do not appear ever to have been executed. The Puritans 
ran back more than forty centuries, and made these statutes 
the voice of authority from the highest court, without the 
exercise of reason or human sympathy. 

We may, within certain limits, reverence that stoicism 
which, martyr-like, discharges its duty utterly regardless of 
sentiment or affection, or indeed of consequences, perform- 
ing the supposed will of Heaven as blind to influences on 
one side or the other as ideal justice herself, but it is diffi- 
cult to conceive of a parent so divested of natural feeling as 
to destroy his own offspring, even under the iron doctrine 
of early Calvinism. It is possible to fanaticism, — mothers 
cast their children into the Ganges, — where right reason 
and affection are insanely overthrown. But these people 
were not fanatics. Fortunately we do not have to apologize 
for the Puritans ; they were never guilty, as we have ob- 
served, of the execution of these cruel statutes. 

Dudley had two hundred and seventy-four acres of land 
laid out to him, December 25, 1646, near Dedham. 1 

Winthrop was chosen governor, Dudley deputy governor 
and commissioner 2 of the United Colonies, May 26, 1647. 
There was only one new assistant elected. This election 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 184. 

2 Mass. Archives, ii. 301. "At a General Court holden at Boston 
for the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts the 26th of the 3 Mo. 1647. 

" Thomas Dudley Esq. and John Endicott Esq. were chosen Com- 
missioners for this Colony for a full and complete year, as any occasion 
or exigents may require, and particularly for the next meeting at Boston 
the 26th of the 5th Month next, and were invested with full power and 
authority to treat of, and conclude of all things according to the true 
tenor and meaning of the Articles of Confederation of the United Col- 
onies of New England concluded at Boston the 19th of the 3 Mo. 1643, 
and in case either of them be hindered in this business either by sick- 
ness, or any other (the like) providence, that then Mr. Bradstreet may 
supply his place. 

"By the General Court, Increase Nowell, Sec." 

" Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Office of the Secretary, Boston, 
Jan. 28, 1898. Compared with the original and found correctly copied. 
Wm. M. Olin, Sec'y." 



1646] DUDLEY AND HOOKER 361 

evidently gave great satisfaction to Winthrop, because his 
enemies had attempted to overturn the old government, and 
signally failed to accomplish their purpose. 1 

" An epidemical sickness was through the country among 
Indians and English, French and Dutch." Forty or fifty 
died in Massachusetts, and nearly as many in Connecticut. 
" But that which made the stroke more sensible and griev- 
ous, both to them and to all the country, was the death of 
that faithful servant of the Lord, Thomas Hooker, pastor of 
the church in Hartford, who, for piety, prudence, wisdom, 
zeal, learning, and what else might make him serviceable in 
the place and time he lived in, might be compared with men 
of greatest note ; and he shall need no other praise : the 
fruits of his labors in both Englands shall preserve an honor- 
able and happy remembrance of him forever." 2 

Hooker has always seemed nearer to Dudley, for the rea- 
son that he first had his home in America at the house of 
Dudley in Cambridge. He and Dudley were, we think, more 
or less united in politics early against Winthrop and Cotton. 
Dudley seems to have been tempted to go with Hooker to 
Connecticut, but resisted and went to Ipswich because he 
did not care to go so far, and not long after was so closely 
united to Winthrop by the marriage of their children and 
otherwise as to be nevermore severed in politics, religion, 
friendship, or policy. John Fiske says that "Mr. Hooker 
deserves more than any other man to be called the father of 
American democracy." There were, however, other progeni- 
tors of the American republic. 

" In this sickness of the governor's wife [Mrs. Winthrop], 
daughter of Sir John Tindal, Knight, left this world for a 
better, being about fifty-six years of age : a woman of singu- 
lar virtue, prudence, modesty, and piety, and especially 

1 Winthrop, ii. *307. 

2 lb., ii. *3io. Rev. John Eliot said, that "generally those that 
died were of the choicest flowers, and most precious saints. Among 
others that were then taken to rest was that worthy and blessed light, 
Mr. Hooker." (Hist. Gen. Rec, xxxiii. 238.) 



362 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

beloved and honored of all the country." 1 The light thus 
departed from the home of Winthrop never to return, and in 
a few brief months he himself followed her. We doubt not 
that the charmed circle around the Winthrop hearthstone 
often included the social, warm-hearted, and welcome Gov- 
ernor Dudley and his family from Roxbury. 

In this sad bereavement very much had gone also out of 
Dudley's life, and by this shadow his own home had been 
forever darkened. These people must have been endeared 
to each other by the vivid experiences of many eventful 
years, and the loss of each of the tried and the true, in this 
constantly contracting circle, must have been deeply felt by 
the survivors. 

" It is ordered, that ten pounds should be given Mr. Eliot, 
as a gratuity from this Court, in respect to his great pains 
and charge in instructing the Indians in the knowledge of 
God, and that order be taken that the twenty pounds per 
annum, given by the Lady Armin for that purpose, may 
be called for and employed accordingly ; and it is desired 
that some care may be taken of the Indians on the Lord's 
days." 2 

Winthrop relates that " mention was made before of some 
beginning to instruct the Indians, etc. Mr. John Eliot, teacher 
of the church of Roxbury, found such encouragement as he 
took great pains to get their language, and in a few months 
could speak of the things of God to their understanding ; 
and God prospered his endeavors, so as he kept a constant 
lecture to them in two places, one week at the wigwam of 
one Wabon, a new sachem near Watertown mill, and the 
other the next week in the wigwam of Cutshamekin, near 
Dorchester mill." 3 

Dudley and Eliot were no doubt at this time very intimate 
and dear to each other. We need to keep in mind that one 
of the influences which drew Dudley to Roxbury was his 

1 Winthrop, ii. *3io. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 189. 

3 Winthrop, ii. *303-*305- 



1646] DUDLEY AND REV. JOHN ELIOT 363 

wish to be under the instruction of Eliot, whom he sincerely 
appreciated. He had moved to Boston in England for a 
similar reason, that he might be under the ministrations of 
the Rev. John Cotton there. Neither were these the only- 
instances in which he changed his residence to bring himself 
and family into near touch with eminent scholarly ministers. 

Cotton Mather has called attention to Dudley's solicitude 
in selecting the purest, the greatest, and the best teachers ; 
an evidence, as we have before noticed, of what he himself 
was. The dwellings, families, and homes of these two excel- 
lent, ever-memorable heroes, we have seen, were on opposite 
sides of the same street in Roxbury, near to the old meeting- 
house, the sacred temple where together they worshiped 
God with a reverence, sincerity, and weightiness of spirit, not 
very much transcended, we suspect, by their more enlight- 
ened, liberal, but sometimes indifferent posterity. 

Ellis, the historian of Roxbury, evidently regards these 
two men, rightly no doubt, as the most notable persons of 
the period in that town. He cannot resist the temptation 
to estimate and compare one with the other over and over 
again, which we esteem a compliment to both of these 
worthies. He says, " Mr. John Eliot, the next person whose 
name we meet, was the counterpart of Thomas Dudley." 1 
And later, " How could Eliot be measured, for instance, 
with Thomas Dudley ? One was a public man, loaded with 
honors, a rich man, a zealous defender of the faith ! The 
other went quietly to work, almost alone, spending all he 
had, encountering danger and earning reproach. In their 
characters all is contrasted. One was a man of the world. 
The other was spiritual, living out what he used to say, 
' Heaven is here.' " 2 

We are not quite prepared to accept the candid judgment 
of Ellis here. We fear that he holds the balances of the 
sanctuary with a strong bias towards the gentle, loving John, 
the apostle to the Indians, and may not quite appreciate the 
soldier, jurist, statesman, — that strong soul who had also 
1 Hist. Roxbury, 104. 2 lb., 117. 



364 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxx 

risked all things, suffered all things, and fought a good fight 
and kept the faith, laid the foundation of a free state in 
the wilderness, with the help of others, and worshiped God 
always with a pure heart and a willing mind. 

Men often think that gentle, inoffensive, lamb-like per- 
sons, whose daily lives and conduct reveal only sweetness 
and light, are nearer to the kingdom of heaven and the 
pattern of the Master, than the more rugged heroes like 
Luther, Cromwell, and Dudley, who, as valiant soldiers, 
without hesitation, take a share in the conflicts of this world, 
full of zeal for the good, and righteous indignation towards 
wrong and oppression everywhere. Is it not possible that 
in the sight of Heaven both may be equally justified ? Were 
they not each faithful stewards of the manifold grace of 
God, whose life works were severally set apart and accept- 
ably performed ? 

May not the contrite delver and ditcher serve in the busy 
hive of this world as truly as the saint who ministers at 
altars and darkens arch or aisle or cornice with clouds of 
incense ? Priests, ministers, and sacred teachers are not 
the only approved servants of God. It is they " who love 
their fellow-men " who demonstrate that they first loved 
God. 

The Court, in common with other Protestant powers, took 
alarm at the progress of the Jesuits, and constructed a stat- 
ute to exclude them : " This Court taking into consideration 
the great wars, combustions, and divisions which are this 
day in Europe, and that the same are observed to be chiefly 
raised and fomented by the secret underminings and solici- 
tations of those of the Jesuitical order, men brought up and 
devoted to the religion and court of Rome, which has occa- 
sioned divers states to expel them from their territories." 
They thence make a law that they shall not be allowed to 
reside in their jurisdiction. 

Persons who condemn the Court of Massachusetts with 
great vigor for excluding Antinomians and other religious 
and political agitators because they deemed them dangerous 



1646] ASSEMBLY AT CAMBRIDGE 365 

to the state, or enemies to good government, have no words 
of censure for this statute. Here was a bird of a different 
feather, who made even Roger Williams quail in spirit and 
speech. But fortunately he was never in his day required 
to test the strength of " soul liberty " to any extent by 
fostering Jesuits. He did not write sweetly about them or 
seem to admire them. 

The Court, out of the goodness of its heart, remembered 
the spiritual fathers who were at Cambridge, puzzled and 
perplexed in constructing a platform of Doctrine to avoid 
the errors of Westminster, and retain the essentials of sound 
doctrine. 

" The Court think it convenient that order be given to 
the auditor to send twelve gallons of sack and six gallons 
of white wine, as a small testimony of the Court's respect, 
to the reverend assembly of elders at Cambridge." 1 

The Court recognized the justice at last of allowing per- 
sons not church members, and therefore not freemen, to sit 
on juries, hold minor town offices, and vote within certain 
limits for selectmen and on assessment, since they were sub- 
ject to the laws equally with the freemen, and had a chronic 
grievance respecting their rights and powers. This action 
was certainly wise and prudent, a step forward towards uni- 
versal American citizenship. 2 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 194, 195. 2 lb., ii. 197. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

The General Court extended a helping hand to Harvard 
College in 1647, by assisting it to receive money due to it, 
and to secure its financial stability. 

It assisted the medical school, in a way which has been 
imitated in many States recently, and which seems not only 
to have aided science but to have prevented crime. " We 
conceive it very necessary that such as study physic or 
surgery may have liberty to read anatomy, and to anatomize 
once in four years some malefactor, in case there be such as 
the Court may allow of." 1 

But the system of public instruction which included then 
and now all the children of the commonwealth, instituted by 
law in 1647, has reflected greater glory upon the founders, 
and done more to exalt the dignity and character of Massa- 
chusetts and secure her lasting prosperity, than any other 
fact in her history. Palfrey has finely said, " Not a word of 
such legislation as the following must be withheld from the 
reader. Since the seventeenth year of Massachusetts, no 
child of hers has been able to say, that to him poverty has 
closed the book of knowledge or the way to honor." 

" It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to 
keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures as in former 
times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these 
latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so 
at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be 
clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, — that 
learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers in 
the church and commonweath, the Lord assisting our en- 
deavors, — 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 201. 



1647] PUBLIC EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS 367 

"It is therefore ordered, that every township in this juris- 
diction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number 
of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within 
their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him, 
to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the 
parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in 
general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that 
order the prudentials of the town shall appoint ; provided 
these that send their children be not oppressed by paying 
much more than they can have them taught for in other 
towns ; and it is further ordered, that where any town shall 
increase to the number of one hundred families or house- 
holders, they shall set up a grammar school [where Greek 
and Latin were taught], the master thereof being able to 
instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university, 
provided, if any town neglect the performance hereof above 
one year, that every such town shall pay five pounds to the 
next school till they shall perform this order." 1 

Moses Coit Tyler has said that "probably no other com- 
munity of pioneers ever so honored study, so reverenced the 
symbols and instruments of learning. Theirs was a social 
structure with its cornerstone resting on a book. Universal 
education seemed to them to be a universal necessity." 2 

" Is there," said Rufus Choate, "a surer way of achieving 
the boast of Themistocles that he knew how to make a small 
state a great one, than by making it wise, bright, knowing, 
apprehensive, quick-witted, ingenious, thoughtful." 

These wonderful people, whose foresight penetrated to 
far-off consequences, embarked upon this enterprise while 
they were yet poor, unprotected, persecuted at home and 
abroad, and in peril on every hand. 

We extol the philanthropy and eminent public services of 
individuals who endow schools and colleges ; we recognize 
them as instinct with a deep love of their fellow-men, of 
other generations also, for this work is lasting ; but here, not 
upon a foundation of charity, but as a municipal obligation, 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 203. 2 Hist. Amer. Lit., i. 99. 



368 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

the state or the town makes a grant tendering to all its youth 
freely, without money and without price, the living waters of 
learning, not for one day, but forever. It is not strange that 
this act has elicited the admiration of the world. 

The following words of Lord Macaulay, in the House of 
Commons in 1847, just two centuries after this act became a 
law, commended it in burning worfls which ought to be dear 
to every American, because they are so true, so beautiful, 
and so just to the memory of those brave, unselfish pioneers 
and their work. Consider for one moment, the orator, the 
place, the occasion. 

" I say therefore, that the education of the people ought 
to be the first concern of a state. . . . This is my deliberate 
conviction ; and in this opinion I am fortified by thinking 
that it is also the opinion of all the great legislators, of all 
the great statesmen, of all the great political philosophers, of 
all ages and of all nations. . . . Sir, it is the opinion of all 
the greatest champions of civil and religious liberty in the 
Old World and in the New ; and of none — I hesitate not to 
say it — more emphatically than of those whose names are 
held in the highest estimation by the Protestant Noncon- 
formists of England. 

" Assuredly, if there be any class of men whom the Pro- 
testant Nonconformists of England respect more highly than 
another, — if any whose memory they hold in deeper ven- 
eration, — it is that class of men, of high spirit and uncon- 
querable principles, who, in the days of Archbishop Laud, 
preferred leaving their native country, and living in the sav- 
age solitudes of a wilderness, rather than to live in a land 
of prosperity and plenty, where they could not enjoy the 
privilege of worshiping their Maker freely, according to the 
dictates of their conscience. Those men, illustrious forever 
in history, were the founders of the Commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts ; but though their love of freedom of conscience 
was illimitable and indestructible, they could see nothing 
servile or degrading in the principle that the state should 
take upon itself the charge of the education of the people. 



1 647] PUBLIC EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS 369 

" In the year 1647 they passed their first legislative enact- 
ment on this subject ; in the preamble of which they dis- 
tinctly pledged themselves to this principle, that education 
was a matter of the deepest possible importance and the 
greatest possible interest to all nations and to all communi- 
ties ; and that, as such, it was, in an eminent degree deserv- 
ing of the peculiar attention of the State." 1 

James Russell Lowell has contributed his estimate of this 
foundation structure of the fathers : — 

" But it was in making education not only common to all, 
but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the 
free republics of America was practically settled. Every 
man was to be trained, not only to the use of arms, but of 
his wits also ; and it is these which alone make the others 
effective weapons for the maintenance of freedom. ... It is 
quite true that our Republic is the heir of the English Com- 
monwealth ; but as we trace events backward to their causes, 
we shall find it true also, that what made our Revolution a 
foregone conclusion was that act of the General Court, 
passed in May, 1647, which established the system of com- 
mon schools." 2 

Douglas Campbell assures us that "rejuvenated England 
has followed America in her system of popular education, 
freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the secret ballot, 
prison reform, and the entire reformation of her legal sys- 
tem." 3 But he evidently thinks that we did not invent ; that 
our ancestors only discovered all things in the Netherlands. 
There is, however, not much new under the sun. We owe 
very much to Holland, it is certain ; she in turn received 
light from Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, from the masterly edu- 
cational services of the Saracens in the Middle Ages ; and 
Germany, before the Thirty Years' War, was leading the 
world in scholarship, as she has been in recent times. 

We are " the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of 

1 Macaulay's Speeches, ii. 334, 335, Redfield's ed. 

2 Among My Books, i. 239-242. 

3 The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, ii. 404, 410-414. 



370 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

time." Our fathers had the wisdom and discretion to take, 
as bees select their honeyed sweets, from sources many, 
strange, and curious, but they always secured the useful, life- 
saving, life-sustaining thing for their hives. 

Nothing can detract from the honor of this great service 
to mankind, rendered now and here by these wise master- 
builders. They who have thrown light upon the path of 
men, and have so secured the vital oil to their lamp that its 
flame shall never be extinguished, have earned and shall re- 
ceive the praises of all time. 

We ought not to take our leave of the subject of educa- 
tion without averting at least to the provision made by the 
Court in 1642 that children shall have trades and education 
in business, and be brought up with an occupation ; if neg- 
lected by parents and guardians, then it was the duty of the 
selectmen of the town to see to the training in industry of 
the refuse and waste of society. 1 

This was a simple and very efficient way to accustom all 
citizens to labor ; to give to every one a trade or occupation ; 
to reduce the number of the unemployed, aho the amount 
of vice and crime born of ignorance and still more of idle- 
ness. We in this day are slowly coming to understand that 
training of the eye, the hand, the judgment, in mechanic arts, 
in handicrafts, is for the larger portion of the community the 
most important education next to morals, while skill in agri- 
culture and in the rotation of crops and qualities of soil and 
their needs calls for special training. And yet again, schools 
in textiles and dyeing and the various arts of manufacture 
are demanded, for the age of apprentices is at an end. 

Here again the practical wisdom, thrift, and business capa- 
city of these men were manifested. They were determined 
to have no drones in their hive, no tramps in their streets, 
no poor on the towns. 

Care was taken by the Court respecting the boundary 
lines of private estates and also of the towns. The subject 
of weights and measures was also under consideration, and 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 6, 7. 



1647] BEGINNING OF THE STATE LIBRARY 371 

provision made to secure uniform and accurate standards in 
both. 

Burglars received attention in the following statute : 
"Whereas no provision hath hitherto been made against 
burglary, and other violent assaults against men's persons 
and goods, the want whereof may expose many, especially 
travellers and inland inhabitants, both by day and night, to 
the rage and cruelty of men of Belial, whether Indians or 
others, for self-defense he is justified in destroying them, 
and shall be holden blameless." 1 

The General Court, with its committees, was making 
deliberate preparation for a very correct compilation of colo- 
nial laws, which was published in 1649, and for that reason, 
among others, they sought the great authorities in the Eng- 
lish common law. " It is agreed by the Court, to the end 
we may have the better light for making and proceeding 
about laws, that there shall be these books following pro- 
cured for the use of the Court from time to time : Two 
of Sir Edward Coke upon Littleton ; two of the books of 
Entries ; two of Sir Edward Coke upon Magna Charta ; two 
of the New Terms of the Law ; two Dalton's Justice of 
Peace ; two of Sir Edward Coke's Reports." 2 

These books are said to have been the beginning of the 
state library in the State House in Boston. 

A little reflection upon the industry and efforts of the 
colonists in making laws, importing law books, and provid- 
ing intellectual and industrial education for the whole people, 
together with moral and religious instruction, will lead our 
attention naturally to the remarkable manner in which Sir 
William Jones gathered it all up in his replete and vigorous 
lines, full to the brim with suggestion : — 

" What constitutes a state ? 



Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, 
Prevent the long-aimed blow, 

Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 210-212. 2 lb., ii. 212. 



372 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ; 

These constitute a state ; 
And sovereign law, that state's collected will, 

O'er thrones and globes elate 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." 

They order, in November, 1647, that hereafter in each 
succeeding year the towns shall, at an annual town meeting 
in the Fifth Month, choose a commissioner, who, with the 
selectmen, shall constitute a board of assessors, whose duty 
it shall be to estimate the true valuation of all real and 
personal estates for the purpose of assessing the taxes, and 
thereupon to make such assessment according to law. 

The prices of corn, for the rate to be gathered, are ordered 
by the Court to be : wheat, four shillings and sixpence ; bar- 
ley, four shillings ; rye and peas, three shillings and six- 
pence ; Indian, three shillings per bushel. 1 

The Court is troubled to furnish ways and means to 
support Governor Winslow, its "honored and industrious" 
agent, in England. 2 

It also ordered leather guns from England, "found to 
answer," in 1778. 3 

The Court ordered that ballots thereafter at elections 
should be of beans, with the same purpose of the Australian 
ballots, and by various devices they tried to secure more 
perfect protection to the secret choice and purpose of the 
independent voter. 

How many of the practical questions in every day's expe- 
rience came before them for judgment and action ! 

It was ordered that all magistrates, deputies, officers of 
the Court, elders and deacons, the president, fellows, stu- 
dents, and officers of Harvard College, and others, shall be 
exempt from trainings, and night and day watching and 
warding. 

The provision for giving alarm at the approach of an 
enemy, night or day, is so complete and particular that it 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 213, 215. 2 lb., ii. 218. 

3 Hayden's Diet, of Dates (Leather). 



1 647] MASSACHUSETTS TOOK THE LEAD 373 

gives a vivid idea of the peril and exposure on every hand 
of these feebly protected people, who, with unsurpassed 
bravery, consummate wisdom, and unshaken faith in the 
divine oracles of God, were fashioning a free government for 
a free people. 1 

There were, at the end of 1647, thirty-three settled towns 
in Massachusetts. This does not include Plymouth, not yet 
annexed. Every other colony in New England was only 
an incident, compared with the growth and progress here. 
Massachusetts led from the start in development, in educa- 
tion, among the United Colonies, in the Revolution, in the 
Civil War, and still leads in extent of noble charities and 
advanced legislation ; and in a natural, well-earned self- 
importance manifests even in her sons and daughters of 
this generation a feeling of superiority. 

Dudley was one of the commissioners of the United Colo- 
nies and president of the confederacy this year, although 
Endicott was his colleague. It seems quite certain, until 
age had impaired Dudley's efficiency, that he outranked 
Endicott in importance in the General Court and in the 
councils of the United Colonies. Endicott seems to follow 
next. 

Palfrey says : " The confederacy of the four colonies was 
an humble but substantial power in the world. It was 
known to be such by its French, Dutch, and savage neigh- 
bors ; by the alienated communities on Narragansett Bay ; 
and by the rulers of the mother country." 2 

It was in this year 1647, on tne 2 9th of May, that Gov- 
ernor Peter Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch governors of 
New Netherland, succeeded the former Governor Kieft. 
He has been so facetiously set forth by Washington Irving 
in his "History of New York," that the really strong quali- 
ties of his character have sustained a loss at the hands of 
this genial master of humor; as the profession of school- 
teacher will not in years escape from the influence of the 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 223. 

2 Palfrey, ii. 271, 272. 



374 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

simple, witless Ichabod Crane, a product of the same match- 
less, kindly wit. 

The commissioners of the United Colonies, Dudley being 
their president, at once paid their respects to Governor 
Stuyvesant, with congratulations upon his accession to office, 
not forgetting to mention certain grievances and injuries 
inflicted on them by his unscrupulous predecessor, such as 
confiscation of English vessels under false pretenses of 
revenue charges, finally giving a relish to their diplomacy 
by suggesting that they hoped to obtain from him full in- 
demnification for their past misfortunes at the hands of his 
people. 

Governor Stuyvesant was easily convinced of the faults of 
the former administration, but instead of consenting to any 
indemnity or restitution, made a counter-demand for the 
restoration of portions of Connecticut and New Haven, 
which he said the English had unjustly wrested from the 
Dutch. Soon after this a short-lived treaty was concluded 
between them and the council. Trouble was, however, soon 
fomented again, and continued until, in 1664, Governor 
Stuyvesant surrendered with tact and wisdom to an over- 
powering British force, without bloodshed, and New Nether- 
land henceforth became New York, some day not far off to 
be the metropolis of the world. 

Winthrop was chosen governor, and Dudley deputy gov- 
ernor, in May, 1648, and Dudley was also chosen substitute 
commissioner of the United Colonies. This proved to be 
the last year of Governor Winthrop's official life. He lived 
until March, 1649, but not until another election of governor, 
which was in the following May. Dudley was, we suppose, 
acting governor from the demise of Winthrop, on the 26th 
of March, until the 2d of May, one month and six days. 

The permit of the Court was reluctantly granted to Samuel 
Gorton to pass through Massachusetts, upon the request of 
the Earl of Warwick. This license was clothed in such care- 
fully guarded words, and was so instinct with disdain towards 
him, and chagrin and humiliation in the submission of the 



1 647] POWERS OF THE UNITED COLONIES 375 

Court to a requisition which it did not feel at liberty to with- 
stand, that we cannot avoid quoting it in full : — 

" The Court did consent that Samuel Gorton, now on ship- 
board, upon the request of the Earl of Warwick, hath one 
full week after the date hereof allowed him, for the transpor- 
tation of himself and his goods, through our jurisdiction, to 
the place of his dwelling, he demeaning himself inoffensively, 
according to the contents of the said earl's letter ; and that 
the marshal, or some other, be appointed to show him a 
copy of this order, or to fix it to the mainmast of the ship 
in which he is." 1 

The Court, in May, 1648, appointed a committee of ten, 
with Winthrop and Dudley at the head of it, " to peruse the 
Articles of our Confederation with the United Colonies, as 
also the acts that have passed the commissioners, which may 
seem either to confound the power of our General Court or 
so interfere with it, as may in a short time prove not only 
prejudicial but exceedingly uncomfortable." 2 

This committee suggested that the powers of the United 
Colonies should not " extend to limit or interrupt the civil 
government or church affairs within any of the colonies." 
They raised questions about having meetings less often. 
And since Massachusetts bore five times the expenses that 
any other colony did, could she not have three commis- 
sioners and the others two each ? It proceeds to say that 
certain decisions of the commissioners are not mandatory 
but only advisory ; this last and only essential point to be 
directed at a claim of right on the part of Connecticut to 
collect imposts from Massachusetts people who dwelt upon 
the banks of the Connecticut River, at Springfield, Mass., 
and in the adjacent country, including Westfield and other 
towns, such toll to be taken at the mouth of the river, to 
construct or repair the fort at Saybrook, or to pay Mr. Fen- 
wick the cost price of the estate. 

Massachusetts had already submitted this question to the 
commissioners, and it had been before them and argued over 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 242, 243. 2 lb., ii. 245. 



376 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

and over, from 1645 to 1648; and Massachusetts, or her citi- 
zens, had finally been directed to pay said duties assessed 
at Saybrook upon merchandise coming down the river from 
Massachusetts. It now wished the judgment understood as 
advisory, not mandatory. Here at the very start these peo- 
ple, who were working away at the foundation of things, had 
to meet a question that has since attracted the attention of 
diplomatists throughout the commercial world ; and although 
many opinions have been expressed, and many arguments 
made on both sides, the balance of authority seems to incline 
towards the right of a state at the mouth of a river to dic- 
tate terms and collect duties, unless that right has been 
extinguished by treaty provisions. 

The first river to be set free was the Rhine, on the de- 
mand of the French, in 1804, more than a century and a 
half after this question was raised on the Connecticut. In 
1880 the Elbe and the Rhine were again restricted, and 
vessels must present themselves at the custom-house on 
each frontier. The great rivers have all been subjects of 
treaty in this respect, — the Danube, the Scheldt, the Ama- 
zon, the La Plata, the Mississippi, the Rio Grande, the St. 
Lawrence, the three great rivers of Alaska, and the Congo 
and Niger. This has all transpired during this century. 
Thus enlightened policy — not obedience to law, but the 
general good of mankind — has in a great measure created 
treaties and set the rivers free from tolls and exactions. 
The demands of an ever-widening commerce will at length 
set the great highways to the sea as free and chainless as 
the ocean itself ; then Massachusetts will be vindicated. 1 

It ought not to escape our notice that an early contention 
had existed between Massachusetts and Connecticut as to 
whether Springfield and Westfield were in one colony or the 
other, in which controversy the commissioners decided in 
favor of Massachusetts. This may have added energy to 
the action of Connecticut. The colony had purchased the 

1 Internat. Law, W. E. Hall, 1 16-125 ; Internat. Law, Woolsey, 79- 
83 ; Wheaton, ii. 4, § 15. 



1647] BOUNDARY DISPUTES 377 

land about the mouth of the Connecticut of George Fen- 
wick in 1644, and the colony of Connecticut claimed under 
him. 

But Massachusetts had contended earlier with Fenwick 
about this title and boundary. " Mr. Fenwick desired in 
1643, that if he did not prove, and make it appear to the 
commissioners at the next meeting, that his line, by an 
ancienter patent than ours, and an authentic one, doth take 
in Wooronock [Westfield], then our line to stand, and that 
trading house to be subject to our orders." 1 

We find the following in a letter from Fenwick to Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, October, 1639 : " For other matters, as they 
are of great consequence and near concernment to others as 
well as myself, I can at present say thus much duly, that if 
there be anything betwixt you and the towns above, about 
bounds, whatsoever is concluded without us here, I shall 
account invalid and must protest against it. I speak not 
this out of any fear either of wrong or neglect from you or 
them, but to tell you in short (having many other business) 
what I hold myself bound to do in that particular, and when 
there shall be a fit time for anything betwixt us you shall 
find us in all things to submit to right and good con- 
science." 2 

It is evident from the Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 264, 268, that 
this question of boundary lines was unsettled in 1649, that 
Fenwick failed to send any one to join Massachusetts in 
running the south line, and that the commissioners, assum- 
ing the Massachusetts line to be the correct one, awarded 
Westfield and Springfield to them. 

We have entered more carefully into this question because 
we find in Mass. Col. Rec, i. 319, the following: "Mr. 
Dudley was entreated to answer Mr. Fenwick's letter, ac- 
cording to the directions indorsed." We had, until the 
present time, no means of knowing the subject-matter of 
this letter, but recently we have learned, as will appear else- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 44. 

2 Hutchinson Papers, published by the Prince Society, i. 121. 



378 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

where, 1 that the general course of controversy between Fen- 
wick and Massachusetts was agitated, and that Dudley was 
directed to set forth in the said answer the definite opinions 
of the Court respecting the southern boundary line of Mas- 
sachusetts, including Springfield, within the colony. 

The immediate connection of Dudley with this affair will 
be apparent, if we consider that he was governor of the 
colony in 1640 and 1645, that he was commissioner in 1643, 
and president of the confederacy in 1647, an d a prominent 
member of the present committee of 1648, during all which 
time this matter of boundary and right of free passage 
through the Connecticut River to the sea was under con- 
sideration. 

There seems to have been immediate connection between 
the above question of boundary and the following one of 
the jurisdiction of Massachusetts over Indians in the neigh- 
borhood of Springfield. William Pynchon, at Springfield, had 
written a letter dated the 5th of Fifth Month, 1648, to Dud- 
ley, the purport of which was that certain murders in his 
neighborhood, committed by the Indians, were probably not 
the work of the Indians within their jurisdiction. The fol- 
lowing quotation, in this connection, illustrates the relation 
of Winthrop, Dudley, and Eliot, in the government. It ap- 
pears in this how much Governor Winthrop relied upon 
Dudley in emergencies ; and, on the other hand, the clear, 
methodical, judicial answer of Dudley shows to us abundant 
reason for Winthrop's confidence in him. " Haste, haste. 
For his loving brother, the deputy governor, with speed." 
On receipt of this letter, the deputy governor, Dudley, sent 
it with this address : " To his honored friend Mr. John Win- 
throp, governor, at his house in Boston, deliver it with all 
speed." Governor Winthrop writes upon it : " Sir, I pray 
acquaint Mr. Eliot with this letter, and let me have your 
advice about it speedily. So I rest your loving brother, 
John Winthrop, governor. 9th of 5th month, 1648." 2 

1 Page 283, this volume. 

2 The following letter of Dudley and notes of Winthrop exhibit in a 



1647] DUDLEY'S LETTER TO WINTHROP 379 

Eliot was acquainted with these Indians and, as we have 
seen, lived opposite the house of Dudley. Dudley answered 
the above as follows. We copy it in full because every line 
of his composition is cherished by us, and it also shows his 
style and his method : — 

" Upon reading this letter and conference with Mr. Eliot, 
I give my advice (which you require) for a pause in the busi- 
ness, before proceeding any further in it. 

"I. Eor that the ground and warrant of our meddling in 
it is by this letter taken away, it being denied that the 

strong light their relations to each other and to the government, at an 
earlier date, in another matter. 

To the Right Worshipful John Winthrop, Esq., Governor. 

Sir, — In answer to yours, and to what Mr. Coddington hath by word 
mentioned, I say as followeth, that I am content himself, Mr. Wilbore, 
Mr. Coggeshall, Goodman Freeborn, and Richard Carder, shall have 
license to depart out of this Patent within a month from hence follow- 
ing, and after to return at their pleasure to remove their families, so it 
be within half a year from this day, — only Mr. Coddington and Mr. 
Wilbore are to come and go, and trade and commerce, and take their 
own time for removal of their families. Likewise for Sergeant Hutch- 
inson and Sergeant Baulston, and for John Porter, I consent to their 
departure and the release of their fines, provided that they shall depart 
before the thirteenth day of the next month, and not return any more, 
which if they do, they are to be liable to the payment of their fines and 
all three to such further censure as the Court shall think meet. Thus 
with my service remembered, I take leave and rest, 

Yours at command, Tho : Dudley. 

19 of the 12, 1637. 

The following order, in the handwriting of Governor Winthrop, is 
found on the next leaf of this letter. 

" Mr. Wm. Coddington, Mr. Jo : Coggeshall, and Mr. Wilbore, are 
licensed to depart out of this Jurisdiction, and they have liberty to 
remove their families, and dispose of their estates here in convenient 
time, at their own liberty, and to go and come at their liberty, except 
they, or any of them shall be otherwise limited by the General Court. 

" Wm : Baulston and Edward Hutchinson have license to depart out 
of this Jurisdiction, provided that they submit to the order of the next 
General Court in regard of the censure they lie under." 

Indorsed by Governor Winthrop, " Brother Dudley." (Mass. Hist. 
Coll., 4th series, vii. 109.) 



380 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxi 

murdered were our subjects or the murderers within our 
jurisdiction. 

" 2. If the murderers should be apprehended and brought 
to us, the party escaping is, for aught we yet know, all the 
witness against them, he affirming he knows their faces, 
which yet is doubtful, the murder being done in the night. 

" 3. It is like in Mr. Pynchon's opinion to draw a war 
upon us, which, if (as he saith) it be provoked by us volun- 
tarily, not necessarily, we shall incur blame at home and with 
our confederate English, and want the [aid ?] from heaven 
in it and comfort in prosecuting it. 

" 4. The charge and difficulty which the sending men out 
in hay and harvest time would be considered. 

" 5. A pause will advantage us in hearing what the Narra- 
gansetts will do upon Uncas, whom we must defend. 

" 6. And if so, it cannot be wisdom in us to stir up other 
Indians against us to join with the Narragansetts. 

" I have forgotten two other reasons while I was setting 
down these. I think a messenger would be dispatched to 
Mr. Pynchon to let such Indians loose, if any should be 
apprehended, which I think will not be, they who have pro- 
mised not being like to do it, or if Mr. Pynchon see cause 
to do otherwise, to leave it to him. 

" Thomas Dudley." 1 

It is evident that Winthrop was very affectionate in his 
nature, while he was capable of being aroused to the acme 
of momentary passion. His early letters to his wife are 
remarkable for their expressions of feeling. We cannot fail 
to note his constant reference to Dudley as "my brother 
Dudley" or "my dear brother Dudley," not only in com- 
munications between them, but in writing also to other per- 
sons respecting him, which makes it still more evident. 2 
For example, in a letter to his son this year, he says, " I 

1 Winthrop, ii. 470, 471, App. 

2 The importance of this we know is diminished by the custom of the 
period. 



1648-49] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY 381 

understand by my brother Dudley, that his son D, 1 finding 
that Mr. B. is offended with his teaching at New Town, is 
now resolved to remove, and if he have a call from your peo- 
ple and assurance of reasonable maintenance at present, and 
what likelihood of competency afterward, he will come to 
you." 2 

Robert C. Winthrop, referring to the last election of Win- 
throp and his associates in office, says, with great feeling 
and good sense, " Winthrop, Dudley, Endicott, Bradstreet, 
— how much of the best history of Massachusetts is con- 
nected with these names ! For length of service ; for stead- 
fast devotion to New England, whether in prosperity or 
adversity ; for ability and integrity ; for moral and religious 
excellence, — we may search the civil history of the colony 
in vain for a nobler quaternion than that represented by the 
names which are thus closely grouped together in Governor 
Winthrop's last entry of a Massachusetts election." 3 

1 We do not know who he may mean by " D." 

2 Winthrop's Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 385. 

3 lb., ii. 374, 375. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

We regret very much to be forced to admit that the mel- 
ancholy delusion of witchcraft took its start in Massachusetts 
in the lifetime of Winthrop and Dudley, while we are thank- 
ful that the great burden of disgraceful record, by chance or 
otherwise, falls upon later administrations in Massachusetts. 

It was in 1691 and 1692 that there came a panic under 
the influence of Cotton Mather's " Memorable Providences." 
" Censure is deserved by all those who speak of Salem witch- 
craft as if it were a special, peculiar, and unique product of 
the Massachusetts theocracy, the flowering out and full 
fruitage of Puritanism. The delusions and atrocities con- 
nected with that distressing episode in our history had no 
relation whatever to the distinctive qualities of Puritanism, 
but involved in a common share in superstitions and cruelties 
all classes and ranks of men and women, of every party in 
religion, Papal or Protestant, and of no religion." 1 

A little investigation will show to us the influence of this 
delusion, and the terrible atrocities resulting from it many 
years before throughout Europe. Winthrop says, Fourth 
Month, 4th, 1648: "At this Court one Margaret Jones of 
Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft and 
hanged for it." 2 He proceeds to give a revolting descrip- 
tion of the evidence against her, which is not creditable to 
him, 3 and shows him, as we have heretofore noticed, to have 
been in no manner above the superstitions of his age. 

It is difficult, even with the above allowance, for us to 
understand how a man could have been so intelligent and 

1 George E. Ellis's Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 557. 

2 Winthrop, ii. *326. 

8 From our standpoint ; but we must judge him from his own. 



1648] WITCHCRAFT IN MASSACHUSETTS 383 

wise, and yet entertain such whimsical superstitions. We 
can understand his accepting the scriptural teaching in these 
matters, and his obedience to what he conceived to be the 
divine authority which bound him both in religion and laws. 
But the mystery still remains why he should take apparent 
satisfaction in the sickening details of this, Mrs. Dyer's, and 
other cases. 1 

Some of these instances cause us to question whether 
Winthrop was so entirely fortunate in having kept a diary, 
while his associate neglected it, in which, while his great and 
amiable qualities appear, his defects by our standards also 
have been transmitted to posterity. 

These very defects contribute to our conviction of his 
honesty and sincerity, as the good and bad intermixed in the 
worthies of the Old Testament, without concealment, add to 
our faith in their character and work. They are neverthe- 
less defects. 

It seems that this was not the first instance of the execu- 
tion of a witch in New England, but it was the first in 
Massachusetts, and the only one in that period of its history 
which we are required to consider. We find, in Winthrop's 
Journal (1646), the following: "One [blank] of Windsor 
arraigned and executed at Hartford for a witch." 2 Savage, 
in his note to this, evidently takes great satisfaction in say- 
ing, "The Connecticut law, December, 1642, may be read in 
three lines of Trumbull, Col. Rec, i. 77. Including the 
authorities from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, 
Massachusetts borrowed every letter of the text and com- 
ment." But it is only just to say that Massachusetts had an 
earlier law, being number two, under her capital laws of 
1 64 1, in the Body of Liberties, of the same import, although 
in the statute of 1649 she seems to have taken the words of 
the Connecticut statute. Dudley cannot escape from his 
share in connection with this miserable business, both in 
making of the laws and in the case of Margaret Jones, but 
there is no other record of his approval of this delusion. 
1 Winthrop, ii. *26i-*264. 2 lb., ii. *307. 



384 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxii 

W. E. H. Lecky has, no doubt truly, said of witchcraft : 
"Arising amid the ignorance of an early civilization, it was 
quickened into an intenser life by a theological struggle 
which allied terrorism with credulity, and it declined under 
the influence of that great rationalistic movement which, 
since the seventeenth century, has been on all sides en- 
croaching on theology. ... It is impossible to leave the 
history of witchcraft without reflecting how vast an amount 
of suffering has, in at least this respect, been removed by 
the progress of a rationalistic civilization." 1 Mr. Lecky's 
entire chapter is full of instruction upon this painful subject. 
We cannot be too grateful that we have escaped many things 
which afflicted our ancestors. 

History has gathered only a few unrejoicing berries from 
fields of antiquity, while the unmeasured and unknown 
ages, we may be certain, were in darkness, gross ignorance, 
and despair ; bitter in superstition, cruelty, and heartless 
tyranny. 

John Winthrop, after one month's confinement with fever, 
departed this life the 26th of March, 1649 ; not, however, 
until the great experiment in civil government, which has 
no superior in its importance to mankind, had been here 
put to the proof and not found wanting. Winthrop, by the 
consensus of all men, is regarded as the illustrious father 
of Massachusetts. No greater honor can attach to any 
name in these modern centuries than this. Dudley was, as 
we have said, only second to him, in responsibility, in self- 
consecration, fortitude, and constancy. They both enter- 
tained the same impossible ideal of government, drawn 
from the very oracles of God, bearing the superscription, as 
they unflinchingly believed, of the all-knowing God and 
Father of us all. 

But while they trusted too much in the letter which killeth, 

they nevertheless surpassed all before them in deducing 

from that volume of truth, coupled with Calvinism, with their 

sincere scholarship, their remarkable common sense, and 

1 Hist, of Rationalism in Europe, i. 152, 153. 



1 649] WINTHROP AND DUDLEY 385 

their new experience, the foundation, lasting and firm, of the 
noblest superstructure in government yet evolved. Winthrop 
has been duly honored by state and nation as he deserves. 
It will, we trust, always be a sacred duty, reverently called 
to remembrance by the people of Massachusetts, to make 
known to every succeeding generation of its citizens the 
matchless services of Winthrop to the commonwealth. 

We do not seek to buttress the character of Dudley by 
the strong personal record and qualities of Winthrop, or to 
raise him above his own just merit and honest desert. Many 
a government has been able, and attracted influence, when 
it possessed in its cabinet a wise, far-seeing, stable minister. 

Many a war has been waged with success, because in 
prominent second command stood a great lieutenant or able 
marshal. Subordinates may not win the honors and may be 
discredited with the mistakes of the campaign, and yet be the 
very bone and sinew in the forward movement of the victo- 
rious column. Whoever else was absent from the councils 
of state, we have found both Winthrop and Dudley there ; 
and in all but the first years, up to 1636, they were of the 
same opinion and party. We have seen how they took 
counsel together about public matters in critical moments. 
Why should they not also be united in the tribute and praise, 
in the homage, of a valiant and grateful people which owes 
so much to their steadfast fortitude, their measureless suffer- 
ings and stupendous sacrifices ? This is the work that we 
have left undone ; herein we have signally failed. We have 
exalted Winthrop, and have been inattentive, even hostile, to 
his great associate and coequal in command in the fierce 
conflict out of which Massachusetts came forth full-armed 
and endued with that energy and those originative principles 
which have made her great and unique among states. 

We need only to refer to one matter already mentioned, 1 

to show how unjust to Dudley most writers have been. We 

do not overlook the fact that earlier in this volume we have 

adverted to this matter, but it is impossible to do it too often 

1 Page 208, this volume. 



386 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxii 

when we contend with such an innumerable host of able 
writers through two centuries and a half of constant repe- 
tition. Hutchinson says briefly, " Some writers say that, 
upon his death-bed, when Mr. Dudley pressed him to sign an 
order of banishment of an heterodox person, he refused, say- 
ing, 'he had done too much of that already.' " 

Dudley here, as it is usually understood, was the willing 
representative and type of the narrow, bigoted, red-handed 
Puritan ; and Winthrop, on the other hand, under a great 
new light and change, had at the approach of his final depar- 
ture been translated out of his generation, into the humane 
Christian convictions of our own times. 

If Dudley ever did take an order to Winthrop, it was an 
order of Court, and not his own scheme, or snare, for the 
unorthodox offender. He was doing, in an official capacity, 
what he had sworn to do in the execution of the laws ; it 
was the act of the Court and not of Dudley in a personal 
sense, and Winthrop, unless too feeble, was bound to sign 
the order. He had no veto power, or power to neglect or 
refuse. But the answer to this tradition, conclusive and full, 
is that the Rev. Marmaduke Matthews, the heretic in ques- 
tion, was at the date of Winthrop's death a minister in Hull 
in good standing, later in Maiden ; that he came under some 
dealing by the Court afterwards, but the record shows what 
was done in his case, and no order of banishment issued, so 
none was taken to Winthrop by Dudley, and the whole story 
rests on a pernicious tradition which found its way into "New 
England Judged," by George Bishop, page 226. 1 Matthews 
was before the Court in the next administration of Endi- 
cott, May, 1649, 2 for the first time, not upon a question of 
banishment, and was only to be admonished by Governor 
Endicott. 3 

1 Felt's Eccl. Hist., i. 364. See Wonder-Working Providence, lib. 
iii. c. vii., or Poole's edition, pp. 211, 212, cix., cxi.; Mass. Col. Rec, 
iii. 29-32. 

8 Felt's Eccl. Hist., ii. 18, 42, 43, 53, 54, 60, 62, 69, 136. 

8 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 276; Winthrop, i. *273, note, ii. *I75, note. 



1 649] AN ASSOCIATION AGAINST LONG HAIR 387 

From this conclusive evidence of the record, this odious 
comparative estimate of these two foremost men at the begin- 
ning of Massachusetts, to the enduring reproach of Dudley, 
ought to perish, and history ought to do him that tardy jus- 
tice which it has declined to render to him for nearly two 
and one half centuries. These dear brothers were, during 
the last thirteen years of their companionship, — years of 
unsurpassed importance in Massachusetts, — one in purpose, 
one in their ideal of the commonwealth, which was to come 
forth from their righteous planting. They " were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided." * 

Endicott succeeded Winthrop, in May, 1649, as governor. 
Hutchinson says : " I fancy that about this time the scrupu- 
losity of the good people of the colony was at its height. 
Soon after Mr. Winthrop's death, Mr. Endicott, the most 
rigid of any of the magistrates, being governor, he joined 
with the other assistants in an association against long 
hair." 2 

There has been no period in history which has not shown 
a variety of indifferent acts or matters to have been adjudged 
evil, and to have received utter disapproval, and their adher- 

1 2 Samuel, chap. i. ver. 23. 

2 Hutchinson, i. 151. The following are the words of Agreement 
and Association, which we quote, because Dudley was a party to it, 
and because it is no doubt the better method to let these people speak 
for themselves when it is possible to do so : — 

" Forasmuch as the wearing of long hair, after the manner of ruffians 
and barbarous Indians, has begun to invade New England, contrary to 
the rule of God's word, which says it is a shame for a man to wear long 
hair (1 Cor. xi. 14), as also the commendable custom generally of all the 
godly of our nation, until within this few years. 

" We the magistrates who have subscribed this paper (for the show- 
ing of our innocency in this behalf) do declare and manifest our dislike 
and detestation against the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing 
uncivil and unmanly, whereby men do deform themselves and offend 
sober and modest men, and do corrupt good manners. We do thereby 
earnestly entreat all the elders of this jurisdiction (as often as they shall 
see cause) to manifest their zeal against it in their public administra- 
tions, and to take care that the members of their respective churches 



3 88 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxii 

ents the persecution, at least the ostracism, of those in 
power. 

Governor Endicott seems to have been very punctilious 
and much in distress about these unimportant matters. He 
began by supporting Roger Williams in requiring "all the 
women of his congregation to wear veils," in 1634, and in 
the same year he cut the red cross out of the king's colors, 
because it was donated to the king by the Pope and was 
idolatrous, and now he begins a crusade against long hair 
among the first acts of his administration in 1649, as » ov - 
ernor. 

It would not be just to Endicott to assume that he was 
the only man who was vigilant in this cause. The names to 
the document forbid that ; but he has the credit of being the 
chief to enforce it. 

Even the sweet soul of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, 
was aroused to high tension by this strange departure from 
rectitude, regarding it a "luxurious feminine prolixity for 
men to wear their hair long." An opinion which most sensi- 
ble people nowadays would heartily approve of, although on 
other grounds, long hair for men being allowed by common 
consent in these days, as a special favor to weak persons 
with poetical tendencies, or to those persons whose exacting 
business engagements afford no time in which to protect 
themselves against this capillary enormity. 

Eliot was especially scandalized by the brethren of his 

be not defiled therewith ; that so, such as shall prove obstinate and 

will not reform themselves, may have God and man to witness against 

them. The third month, 10th day, 1649. 

"Jo. Endicott, Governor, 
Tho. Dudley, Dep. Gov., 
Rich. Bellixgham, 
Richard Saltonstall, 
Increase Nowell, 
William Hibbins, 
Thomas Flint, 
Robert Bridges, 
Simon Bradstreet." 

(Hutchinson, i. 152.) 



1 649] PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY 389 

own profession. It grieved him beyond measure that they 
" ruffled their heads in excesses of this kind." But with the 
lofty resignation of Mrs. Partington armed with her mop, in 
powerless conflict with the Atlantic, and with a philosophy 
worthy of a great cause, he at last concludes, " The lust is 
insuperable." x Hutchinson says the rule in New England 
was, " no hair below the ears," ministers to go patentibus 
anribus? 

Dudley was again, in 1649, appointed commissioner of the 
United Colonies for the last time. He was seventy-three 
years of age, but he was at once chosen president of the 
confederacy. He was, however, prevented to some extent 
by ill health from attending its sessions. This attracts our 
attention more, because he was always present at the Gen- 
eral Court, and discharged with distinguished fidelity all of 
his official obligations. We are forced to regard this illness 
as a premonition that his great life work was approaching its 
termination. It was the beginning of the end. 3 

It was stated early in this work, as the testimony of some 
of the best informed, that the great burden and responsibility 
of the government rested upon the two conspicuous leaders, 
Winthrop and Dudley. And we are convinced it might as 
truly be said that when Winthrop was gone, then the chief 
place came to Dudley; and Mather has related that after the 
death of Dudley, the notice and respect of the colony fell 
chiefly on Endicott. 4 

We do not forget that they proceeded in 1649 to choose 
Endicott, and not Dudley, governor. But Dudley's five 
years did not come around until the next year, when he was 
chosen governor for the last time. 

He was, in 1649, deputy governor and president of the 
confederacy. As we have noticed, he was ill ; we know 

1 Mass. Hist. Coll., viii. 27; J. B. Moore's Memoirs of Am. Gov- 
ernors, 359, note. 

2 Hutchinson, i. 152. 

3 Plymouth Col. Rec, ix. 149, 160. 

4 Mather's Magnalia. 



390 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxn 

nothing of that sickness except that it deprived the confed- 
eracy of his services. 

There is reason to believe that events of the greatest 
importance, both in England and America, must have con- 
tributed much with his advancing years towards the aggra- 
vation of his sickness. The sense of loneliness and respon- 
sibility in a great national crisis, his strong, intense nature, 
which had endured so many hardships and surmounted so 
many difficulties, and survived in the midst of fallen asso- 
ciates in so many struggles, was in this critical juncture 
consuming itself with overwhelming anxiety. 

The irreparable loss of Winthrop was hardly realized by 
him when news not less startling, possibly more sensational 
and potent in peril, came from England that the people in 
their majesty and might had beheaded Charles I. Or, in the 
spirit but not the words of an eminent Scotchman, they had 
made kings know that they had a joint in their necks. 

His sympathies had been with the people against the king, 
but he may well have stood aghast in presence of this final 
catastrophe, which had exceeded in bold and daring execu- 
tion any thought that he had entertained respecting the 
revolution. We do not know how he viewed it, but we do 
know that the first feeling with the public, in America as in 
England, was one of consternation, and then of wonder as 
to the next consequences to follow this violent taking off of 
a king. 

It is needful to keep in mind that the church doctrine of 
the divine right of kings was commonly accepted, and that 
they were not amenable to human tribunals. It required 
another half a century and another revolution to explode 
that theory and to settle forever that the king himself is of 
the people, by the people, and for the people, and amenable 
to the people. But the theory of the divine right had 
received a mortal blow in the destruction of Charles I., from 
which it had no chance of recovery. 

Consider for a moment the thoughts and feelings of the 
subjects of the king, three thousand miles away, who had 



1 649] EXECUTION OF CHARLES I 391 

not the daily excitement in London to stir them up to mutiny 
and prepare them, step by step, for the final event. They 
had been taught, and their ancestors before them for many 
generations, that it was treason in a subject to impeach the 
motives or question the conduct of a king. It is a proverb 
expressing the convictions of men for ages, and even now 
it is held in a Pickwickian sense, that "the king can do no 
wrong ; " evil is solely from the ministry. 

A powerful recoil had returned to America, whence much 
of the energy and leaven which had permeated England, 
and had wrought this daring deed, had originated without a 
dream of its fatal outcome. 

What would be the issue of this dreadful affair in Eng- 
land ? in America ? was the question. Winthrop is thought 
never to have known of the execution. The leaders must 
hold on their course without his wise counsel, without that 
confidence his sound judgment always inspired, without his 
foresight and prudence, taking upon themselves his great 
share of public responsibility. 

It could hardly be expected that Dudley so late in life 
could suffer this accumulation of sorrows, perils, and respon- 
sibilities, without being overcome, and feeling more than he 
had ever done before the extreme necessity to cherish his 
resources of health and strength, and " husband out life's 
taper at the close." 

The Book of Discipline produced by the synod of Cam- 
bridge in 1647, was in 1649 commended to the consideration 
of the churches by the General Court for their approval, 
before the action of the Court thereon. 1 The Book of the 
General Laws and Liberties concerning the inhabitants of 
Massachusetts, collected out of the records of the General 
Court for the several years wherein they were made and 
established, was in May, 1649, revised by the Court, and 
" disposed into an alphabetical order and published." 2 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 285. 

2 W. H. Whitmore's Col. Laws of Mass., 79, 119; Mass. Col. Rec, 
ii. 286. 



392 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxn 

We are certain that great interest must always be found 
in the changes in the courts and administration of justice in 
this constructive period, wherein everything, including laws 
and customs, was rounding into form ; and it is a matter of 
constant surprise how many of their expedients in legal prac- 
tice and otherwise, then first tested and tried, became per- 
manent, and have continued to this day useful and with 
little change. Their laws grew out of daily experience and 
necessity in human society, which after all has much in com- 
mon from age to age, and therefore whatever method is well 
adapted to a useful purpose easily becomes permanent. 

Not long after the death of the king, the public mind of 
England was moved in behalf of the Indians in New Eng- 
land through the correspondence of John Eliot, aided by 
the great influence of Governor Winslow. Parliament was 
induced on July 27, 1649, t0 P ass an act "f° r promoting and 
propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England." 1 

"This," says Mr. Drake, in his " History and Antiquities 
of Boston," page 316, "was the origin of the Society for 
Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, — a society of 
great importance so long as the race for which it was insti- 
tuted were of any account. And it is specially noticed here 
because it 'has all along had its commissioners at Boston.' " 
The Hon. Robert Boyle, appointed by Charles II., was its 
first governor in 1662. We mention this because it is plea- 
sant to connect his name with philanthropic work in Amer- 
ica, since no person after Lord Bacon had in England such 
a reputation in scientific scholarship. 2 

1 Parliamentary Hist, of Eng., xix. 156. 

2 Boerhaave declared that " we owe to him the secrets of fire, air, 
water, animals, plants, and fossils." He contributed generously to the 
funds of the above-mentioned society, and left a bequest to it in his 
will. The correspondence between Boyle and the commissioners of 
the United Colonies, in his official relation as governor, is very instruc- 
tive. (Hazard, ii. 453, 470, 491.) 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Dudley was for the fourth and last time elected governor, 
May 22, 1650. It was now twenty years since "the great 
emigration " had come to America under the leadership of 
Winthrop and himself. What a change in that twenty 
years had taken place in New England. What a large 
amount of territory had been settled and brought under 
cultivation ; what an extent of constructive work had been 
accomplished, in laws, in the government of towns, in the 
holding of courts, in legal practice, in customs of society, in 
a hundred forms distinctly American ; and lastly, what an 
individualism, and democratic spirit, and independency had 
leavened the whole community, and taken it far on the road 
towards the thought of " liberty, equality, and fraternity," 
the battle-cry of a subsequent revolution. 

These twenty years of experience and testing of princi- 
ples, on a new continent, with a new and free environment, 
were initiatory in that general revolution on both sides of 
the sea which was determined on the overthrow of hier- 
archies, kingcraft, and priestcraft, with every form of feu- 
dalism. 

It was the beginning of the most quiet but most potent 
revolt of the people in the interests of liberty which the 
world had seen, and was followed by consequences of which 
no one had then a conception. 

As we read in the records of the General Court that it 
granted the request of Dudley and others, executors to the 
last will of Isaac Johnson, respecting a certain amount of 
land, we are drawn back instinctively to the early days of 
the colony, with a mingled feeling of sadness, and of delight- 
ful recollections of the ship Arbella and of her distinguished 



394 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiii 

passengers, of Isaac Johnson and the Lady Arbella, the 
sister of the Earl of Lincoln, " who took America on her 
way to Heaven." Dudley was an original executor to this 
will, a position of honor which his connection with the 
family during many years may in some measure have 
brought to him. 1 

The inhabitants of Boston wisely petitioned the General 
Court to repeal the payment of duties on the part of the 
inhabitants of the other colonies exporting from, or import- 
ing goods into the colony of Massachusetts, because Con- 
necticut had suspended the taking of customs at Saybrook, 
at the mouth of the Connecticut River. The Court granted 
this petition, and was no doubt glad to find itself out of the 
entanglement of a retaliatory act, by which it had, not to 
its credit, involved the other colonies in its attempt to pun- 
ish Connecticut. 2 

The most important act by far of the General Court in 
the year 1650 was the charter granted by it to Harvard 
College, which, by a strange succession of circumstances 
hereinbefore mentioned, still remains to this day, to be the 
charter of the University. 

Governor Joseph Dudley, as we have seen, had a bold and 
conspicuous part to perform in connection with this matter. 
It is certainly no small honor to Governor Thomas Dudley 
that as executive his name is attached to this illustrious and 
ever-memorable document, no matter how perfunctory the 
act, of signing may have been. 3 

Plymouth relinquished to Massachusetts its claim upon 
the Warwick and Pawtuxet district, now of Rhode Island, 
the subject of long contention, involving Samuel Gorton, 
Benedict Arnold, and divers Indians. It was annexed to 
the county of Suffolk. 4 

Two days later the Court made preparation to try the 
question of the right and title of Massachusetts to the afore- 
said district in dispute, with Gorton's company, inviting dif- 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iv. 7. 2 lb., iv. 11. 3 lb., iv. 13. 

4 lb., iv. 17, 19; Palfrey, ii. 362, 363. 





# oft ftiib from tvkiv.W tvHiC'g>- diiv of ♦§<■ •ftufi 



chthcytnt" Co Tyo^iritou ^haHcoufTot ^-K u^Tbat tb£. ■ ^, 

i[*'[t.i>ni' CoTik-t;-!- [!>tll Kuk vyWH'1' All"? J IV Jj 
loin tytn^. t'CtyiiiC 'ty.- diiv of t^c -j'u$ jxrjoti ot ^crtonf j-baU ^vc 'crbc-t 
jfc fwct] t cnc ^c'Sv t, - vUti»}nC i 'itu?Cv'n| Vi'at C' .m ^rtuvti' rt'tl mtonb a' 

' '-lito av s' of ^ava^^^vHr c><t,c--Hu'r | hoHl h vui tKn'tc>:ov.nn. 



• J 




tjv^UViitit nicer not i.yu-<^mc<~tR- V^iuc o{ ffuK (> 

H-uoiuitui^: viT'vtbm' rIvL'"^|ai tfoinon ^ rcrcftM'o <.ttu> t£ ■ ) fcdufcnt si 

kben tb^v [K^tT f bjjttTfi tt To nuttc ■ ft.ii? appoint ftyOii ■■ i ttvcy>|c.'l 

Vl'.".u iviuot>'tyiuC'ii ii-w ravcfctc'ou? cF oolc- [ ucb CVTTc<i'r- ? cr oaut^iv tKc« 
i^C.vtf ov vcm o^catTu-' cboofc;.frx\tfr otfccr^ a ntJ to mg£c-funn _tv m</to tvuS 
kl ofic Sao a5 tficv i ^aCl" t&nu£ t\tt.'.prgmoc t* tfic (cii,? oTOCTrt^ o^£n^tf~pv 
ntr'tmto^»"^i"vi.ilmvt- fjkitT finuc 'yowcy^t o iisik' ymiujmc 'bt\Y n.auic..ft jcrjaq 
^ijS "fvr tho^ctur ovXrutft "oft tv.-ooi item ..-Tit gf tfig ■ [at? Colt^U ■ .'m"i^ <,.'tp? w 
>oj;' ;tX'7VJiTc- nv5 [Ktttnn tj imvp f rom iVir w'to t v ni^' Vyivni *o u c. ' umv nuN or \\ ct \i 
jof ^jT-^vr ^ F J^ j ircrmfatt th^'pTotyitt nisi- ^CUC unuTgof Jnv j aTiccg - aiit 1 ">i|po|iri| 
Xto >or ^, rTrtj.cn m affvincttfitit owttjtottTVoccuU ou^atf ofrvr f ' ttti? 
,t s Jifprttlt cnjcS, a,TljS in Kxjcj of jfeo&ttg3K <:»ty«1 .£fci affwliiiiwaK'^ afore] 

jottFc .imo C^tlcTc^H ^fW*^^ booicsgtt^ atTotb* 

c+ ttsv? lucratim-.'lU'K^ iti} ^CUtuCS : . ^UCffli rtK 



"T»fcr»apuul \ rvt^r^iF^imiF rrrr>n to ttvL- a fTi7t("aii 
.-..p..-: i b.i'XAvm hcn"re"tort fi bfc.-fr fec> { cth Att'ciiuvT rirT^x^Ttion^ tny^ s 
; . ■ cytin pt from vrtC raamuc oV toflt. £ .sitom^^ Tcyall- tr bat)wic r QLnTb ~<6^ 

•ncu'. tt ffy it TjoTial F cuu.ll cff\tU> mtR fcvU-' «tyCTuft* <?v tcnu ccS xi>atcbwtc 6 
r iRt>trct •fTO'iti a CTc ountr- y ta\c ?~of~ra7£» trbatlocucr otit> mmc 'rtfcvS t3 



FACSIMILE OF CHARTER OF HARVARD 







tow rv»v.3T& 



J' In. 1 







gttWKjafthfc g*fl .-, ,h ni - 4c power a»^55TKCTcgv^. utt& racV JJ 



ttwtg ttffi tog tScm g^cc'tc raaoto^^ . J j 






conrliijiou l^att ix maSt'br the--,. ..-.or i-o^tc » | t tf\IS3S^ r li r ;.-' 

Vnt ,>r C.>HU>nc- iiiptrt.iv.-,i;r,.i- . Vi-cKnit^ '■ -V., .Tj"? ".T'~ *» 'A «1J 

uT7uvT^\TT.'r^? VFv~vTT- ~%lljr^ - * lu 5 l nuK v>,; - t vu '^ 



\Sf*_ — 



~S ' '. 






i 




GE SIGNED BY GOVERNOR DUDLEY 



1650] LEX MERCATORIA 395 

ferent judges and a jury to determine the points of differ- 
ence, " that so mutual peace and love may be preserved 
amongst us." This does not look like a wicked purpose on 
the part of Massachusetts to hold this territory in any event, 
rightfully or otherwise. We are well persuaded that the 
Massachusetts government meant to be just and equitable 
in its dealings with its neighbors ; and that if its conduct did 
not seem consistent with that view at all times, if it appeared 
to be selfish and self-seeking, at those times in general it was 
contending for its supposed self-preservation, or protecting 
the weak and innocent against the violence of wicked men. 

Strangers have liberty granted to them to try actions one 
with another in the courts of Massachusetts. 

Marmaduke Matthews had an opportunity given to him to 
explain his heresy, and to give satisfaction on June 28, 1650, 
fifteen months after the decease of Winthrop, and there is 
no order of banishment yet in the case ; it had not even 
reached its concluding hearings and final judgment, nor did 
it for a long time ; and when judgment did come, as we have 
noticed, it was not of banishment. 1 

No one thing, it may reasonably be said, so thoroughly 
registers the advancement of a people in rationalism, in busi- 
ness, in morals, in culture, and in the comforts of life, as the 
laws they make and are able faithfully to execute, thus prov- 
ing that the public sentiment of their age approves of and is 
abreast of the legislation. 

The General Court appointed a committee to examine a 
certain book which had appeared, and was entitled " Lex 
Mercatoria," or a treatise on the Law Merchant, then exist- 
ing:. This committee was directed to select from the book 
those provisions needful in the commerce of the colony, 
particularly with reference to maritime affairs. They have 
discovered that such laws have been made and published in 
England, France, and other kingdoms and commonwealths. 2 

This is significant, for it informs us that the colony was 
entering the commerce of the world, which is the next step 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iv. 21. 2 lb., iii. 193, 252 ; iv. 10, 69. 



396 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiii 

to entering the sisterhood of nations. 1 It no longer subsists 
on what it can produce, in poverty and want, omitting the 
comforts and luxuries of life. It seeks now all that the earth 
can give. It produces more than it needs, and seeks a mar- 
ket over the sea for the surplus. 

A strong desire and felt need for this department of law, 
more extended and far-reaching in its use and effects than 
the statutes found in the Body of Liberties, forcibly shows 
us how very much they had already advanced towards national 
life and national requirements, to meet on the highways of 
trade the subjects of foreign nations. 

Bozoun Allen of earlier fame reappears on the record. It 
will be remembered that he was in 1645 the rival of Anthony 
Eames, indeed, the deputies' candidate against the magis- 
trates', for the position of captain of a militia company in 
Hingham ; and that in this contest at last Winthrop was 
impeached, but triumphed finally over all of his opponents in 
a " little speech," which has been greatly commended. 

It seems that this Bozoun Allen had the audacity or effron- 
tery to attack Dudley early in 1650, making charges directly 
to Governor Dudley himself, that he had falsified and made 
misstatements regarding Hingham people, and the agitation 
of Cotton and Wilson respecting them at Weymouth. He 
seems, from his apology left on the record, to have aroused 
a somewhat vigorous adverse party, who did not take the 
trouble to soothe him with "little speeches" and the sweet 
reasonableness of actions and law, but set him at once to eat 
humble pie. 

It is only just to say of this misguided man, that he dis- 
claimed any intention to be discourteous, although the evi- 

1 Mr. Justice Kent says, "When Lord Mansfield mentioned the Law 
Merchant as being a branch of public law, it was because that law did 
not rest essentially for its character and authority on the positive insti- 
tutions and local customs of any particular country, but consisted of 
certain principles of equity and usages of trade, which general conven- 
ience and a common sense of justice had established, to regulate the 
dealing of merchants and mariners in all the commercial countries of 
the civilized world." (Kent's Comm., iii. 2.) 



1650] THE MATTER OF BOZOUN ALLEN 397 

dence showed that he had been. We are only interested in 
that portion of his gentle and beautiful apology which de- 
scribes Governor Dudley, and Allen's estimate of him, under 
the circumstances, or it may be in fact. He says, with 
humility mingled with sadness, "and most of all to defame 
him whom I know and acknowledge to be, and have been, so 
eminently serviceable unto, and tender of, the good of this 
country, and do, in very deed, account it a matter of grief 
unto my very soul that he should be reproached or the least 
eclipsed by any, and much more that I should be, or appre- 
hended to be, an occasion thereof. Secondly, I do solemnly 
profess that I neither have, nor then had, such a thought in 
my heart, nor I trust ever shall harbor such a thought ; as if 
he, viz., our Honored Governor, did, or would, willingly speak 
or relate anything untrue or false ; nor know I any ground 
for myself, or any man, so to conceive, much less to conclude 
or affirm, concerning him. 

" Thirdly, my humble request to this honored Court, and 
in particular to our Honored Governor, is, that I may be 
favorably construed according to my upright and sincere 
acknowledgment and protestation, and that whatsoever in 
any of my expressions on the occasion aforesaid was justly 
offensive, in one respect or other, may be remitted and cov- 
ered with the mantle of love, which hopes, believes, and suf- 
fereth much. 

" Fourthly, for vindication of our Honored Governor from 
all appearance of reproach by my occasion, my humble re- 
quest is, that this acknowledgment may be publicly read 
before the Court ; so, desiring your prayers to God for me, 
that I may be more circumspect and inoffensive in all points 
for time to come, I humbly subscribe myself, willing, in all I 
may, to serve and honor you. 

"Bozoun Allen." 1 

Allen may have used these conciliatory and appreciative 
words under constraint from the magistrates, but neither he 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 25, 26, 206, 207. 



39S THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiii 

nor they are open to a suspicion of premeditated adulation. 
There was a grave sincerity in the words and lives of all 
of them, which assures us that the kind words said of Dud- 
ley were then thought by the magistrates and the public not 
to exceed his just merits. And therefore this document was 
spread upon the records by the Court with their distinguished 
approval, as a sort of public indorsement of Dudley by his 
contemporaries. 

The Court now ordered that no man shall strike his wife, 
nor any woman her husband, under a penalty not exceeding 
ten pounds or corporal punishment. This was a humane and 
righteous law. 

William Pynchon, of Springfield, published a book en- 
titled " The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, Justifi- 
cation," etc., which appeared in New England in 1650, and 
created a great commotion in church and state. The effect 
of the heresy was more dangerous, and created greater con- 
sternation, because Pynchon was a highly esteemed citizen, 
and had been long an assistant and influential person in 
Massachusetts. He had in his remote home been pondering 
with the assistants over the works of the great biblical schol- 
ars, of many lands and different periods, the central thought 
of Orthodox Christianity, and had become bewildered in the 
blinding mists of heterodoxy, in the opinion of the sound, 
well-seasoned divines and leaders in Christian thought in 
Massachusetts at that time. 

The General Court ordered his book to be burned in the 
market-place in Boston by the common executioner, and pro- 
ceeded to cure Pynchon of his errors, employing the learned 
John Norton to answer his book and furnish an antidote 
full and ample to its heretical virus. Pynchon soon retired 
to England, not to return, and the colony lost a valuable 
citizen. 

History for more than two centuries clearly indicates to 
us the utter folly of the action of the Court in Pynchon's 
case. But they had not our advantage, and they acted up 
to the light they had. There are not wanting to-day people 



1650] FATHER DRUILLETTE 399 

of the same ideas, spirit, and purpose of the Court then, but 
their methods are more concealed and subtle. 1 

Governor D'Aillebout, of Canada, had labored since 1648, 
by correspondence, messengers, and otherwise, to secure the 
alliance and affiliation of New England with Canada, includ- 
ing reciprocity in commerce. The government of Massachu- 
setts wisely and constantly declined all overtures. 2 Father 
Druillette, a zealous Jesuit missionary, came in 1650 on one 
of those diplomatic visits. He informs us that he was 
received in Boston by Major-General Gibbons, who, he says, 
" gave me a key of an apartment in his house, where I might 
freely pray and go through the services of my religion ; and 
besought me to make his house my home while I continued 
in Boston." The general went with him to "a village called 
Roxbury," to call upon Governor Dudley. He was invited 
by the governor to dine in that home which, as we have 
seen, is said to have had more distinguished strangers be- 
neath its roof than any other in the commonwealth. 

He was subsequently dined in like manner at the home of 
Governor Bradford, at Plymouth. But the friend and hospi- 
tality that he most valued were over the way from Dudley's 
house, in the residence of Eliot, a brother Indian missionary, 
not of the Latin church, but of the church universal. 

Governor Dudley and other citizens of Massachusetts 
must have been perplexed and disconcerted in extending 
courtesies to this Jesuit Father, with the law of 1647, which 
they had constructed themselves, confronting them. " No 
Jesuit or ecclesiastical person ordained by the authority of 
the Pope shall henceforth come within our jurisdiction." 3 

They may have consoled themselves with the opinion that 
his official agency, representing New France, eliminated his 
religion and personality for the time being, and left him only 
a commissioner of his country. Dudley seems to have been 
wary of him and of his proposals and schemes. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 215, 230; The Puritans in England and New 
England, by Byington, 185, 281. 

2 Hazard, 182. 8 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 112. 



400 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiii 

This concluding year of Dudley's gubernatorial life had 
been full of important events, both in England and America, 
and now it had reached its close, and he was about to depart 
from his great office, never to return, full of years, full of 
honors, still holding in undiminished strength the affection 
and confidence of his fellow -citizens, who had never dis- 
trusted him nor been false to him. 

We may justly apply to Governor Dudley in his official 
life the beautiful words of Tacitus, respecting Agricola : 
" Scorning to disguise his sentiments, he acted always with 
a generous warmth, at the hazard of making enemies." * 

The following is the testimonial of the Court on his 
services, in 1650: "This Court doth with all thankfulness 
acknowledge the good service of Thomas Dudley, Esq., our 
late honored governor, in respect of his great care and faith- 
fulness in the discharge of that trust which was committed 
unto him, and do in the behalf of the country render him 
hearty thanks for the same, and desire his kind acceptance 
of one hundred marks [£,66 13s. 4d.] as a slender manifes- 
tation of our due respect unto him, until we shall be better 
enabled to declare the same, which we order shall be paid 
him by the treasurer out of the next county levy." 2 

Endicott was elected governor in May, 165 1, and Dudley, 
for the twelfth time, deputy governor. 

Dudley now received a letter from Governor Edward Wins- 
low, the agent of the colony in England, to the effect that 
all warrants and processes in the colony should hereafter be 
issued in the name of Parliament, or " of the keepers of the 
liberties of England," instead of the name Colony of Massa- 
chusetts, or the Governor and Company of Massachusetts, 
or that there should be a modification of their charter which 
should acknowledge the de facto government in England. 
These propositions at once raised the issue of their quasi 
independence, which had so often been called to their notice 
by the British government during their history, and as often 

1 Life of Agricola, by Tacitus, chap. xxii. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 226, 227. 



1651] PETITION TO PARLIAMENT 401 

by tact and skillful diplomacy harmlessly laid to rest, while 
the government went on its course unnoticed and undis- 
turbed. This time they were not dealing with Loyalists, 
but with Independents and Puritans of like faith with them- 
selves, and they could and did appeal with confidence to 
them, setting forth their common interest in a common 
cause, and their own steadfast loyalty to that cause in their 
record and conduct. 

It is needless to say that this was effectual. They com- 
plied with neither request, but went on their way under their 
charter unchanged, and were unmolested. We cannot in 
any other manner enter so fully into their feelings and pur- 
poses as by studying their petition to Parliament on this 
question, signed by Endicott, Dudley, and Edward Rawson, 
secretary, in the name and behalf of the General Court. 1 

1 Copy of a petition to the Parliament in 1651 : — 

" To the Most Honorable the Parliament of the Commonwealth of 
England, the Supreme Authority, Greeting. 

" The humble petition of the General Court of the Massachusetts 
Bay in New England. 

" There coming to our hands, not long since, a printed proclamation 
prohibiting trade with Virginia, Barbadoes, Bermuda, and Antigua, of 
which we were observant (though to the great loss and prejudice of the 
whole Colony), about the end thereof we found, that the Parliament 
had given power to the Council of State to place governors and com- 
missioners (without exception) in all the colonies of the English in 
America, wherein we finding ourselves comprehended as wrapped up 
in one bundle with all the other colonies. [This possibility of a foreign 
governor not of their own election and choice was an embarrassment 
constantly returning to trouble them, since it would be destructive of 
their holy experiment in church and state.] Our case being different 
from all other English colonies in America for aught we know, or have 
heard : Also since receiving information by Mr. Winslow, our agent, 
that it is the Parliament's pleasure that we should take a new patent 
from them and keep our Courts, and issue our warrants in their name, 
which we have not used either in the late King's time or since, not 
being able to discern the need of such an injunction : These things 
make us doubt and fear what is intended towards us. [Their charter 
was satisfactory to themselves ; they did not care to risk changes in it, 
or experiments with it, fearing that they might tend to limitation and 
restraint of their priceless liberties.] Let it therefore please you, most 



402 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxm 

Another attempt was made this year to make the colony- 
useful to England, by transporting it in whole or in part to 

Honorable, we humbly entreat, to take notice, hereby, what were our 
orders, upon what conditions and with what authority we came hither, 
and what we have done since our coming. We were the first movers 
and undertakers of so great an attempt, being men able enough to live 
in England with our neighbors, and being helpful to others, and not 
needing the help of any for outward things, about three or four and 
twenty years since, seeing just cause to fear the persecution of the then 
bishops and high commission, for not conforming to the ceremonies 
then pressed upon the consciences of those under their power, we 
thought it our safest course to get to this outside of the world, out of 
their view and beyond their reach. Yet before we resolved upon so great 
an undertaking, wherein should be hazarded not only all our estates, 
but also the lives of ourselves and our posterity, both in the voyage at 
sea (wherewith we were unacquainted) and in coming into a wilderness 
uninhabited (unless in some few places by heathen, barbarous Indians), 
we thought it necessary to procure a patent from the late King, who 
then ruled all, to warrant our removal and prevent future inconven- 
ience, and so do. By which patent, liberty and power was granted to 
us to live under the government of a governor, magistrates of our own 
choosing, and under laws of our own making (not being repugnant to 
the laws of England), according to which patent we have governed our- 
selves above this twenty-three years, we coming hither at our proper 
charges, without the help of the state, an acknowledgment of the free- 
dom of our goods from custom, and having expended, first and last, in 
our transportation, building, fencing, war with the Indians, fortifying, 
subduing the earth in making it fit for culture, divers hundreds of thou- 
sand pounds ; and have now made the place so habitable that we are 
enabled to live in a mean and low condition, and also to furnish other 
places with corn, beef, pork, masts, clapboards, pipe staves, fish, beaver, 
otter, and other commodities, and hoped that our posterity should reap 
the fruit of our labor, and enjoy the liberties and privileges we had 
obtained for them, and for which we have paid so dear, and run so 
great hazards. 

" And for our carriage and demeanor to the honorable Parliament 
for these ten years, since the first beginning of your differences with 
the late King and the war that after ensued, we have constantly adhered 
to you, not withdrawing ourselves in your weakest condition and doubt- 
fulest times, but by our fasting and prayers for your good success, and 
our thanksgiving after the same was attained, in days of solemnity set 
apart for that purpose, as also by our sending over useful men (others 
also going voluntarily from us to help you) who have been of good use, 



1651] PETITION TO PARLIAMENT 403 

Ireland, to repeople that country, which Cromwell had deso- 
lated by war, with the thought that a resolute self-governing 

and done good, acceptable services to the army, declaring to the world 
hereby, that such was the duty and love we bear unto the Parliament, 
that we' were ready to rise and fall with them; for which we have suf- 
fered the hatred and threats of other English colonies, now in rebellion 
against you, as also the loss of divers of our ships and goods taken by 
the King's party that is dead, by others commissioned by the King of 
Scots, and by the Portuguese. All which, if you shall please justly and 
favorably to consider, we cannot but hope, but that as you have for- 
merly conferred many favors upon us, so it shall go no worse with us 
than it did under the late King; and that the frame of our government 
shall not be changed, and instead of governor and magistrates yearly 
by ourselves chosen, have other imposed upon us against our wills ; 
wherein if our hopes should deceive us (which God forbid) we shall 
have cause to say we have fallen into hard times, and sit down and 
sigh out our too late repentance for our coming hither, and patiently 
bear what shall be imposed upon us ; our adversity in such a case 
being the greater, because some of us are too old, and all our estates 
grown too weak (except a very few) to seek out a new corner of the 
world to inhabit in. But, as we said before, we hope that this most 
honorable Parliament will not cast such as have adhered to you and 
depended upon you, as we have done, into so deep despair, from the 
fear of which we humbly desire to be speedily freed by a just and 
gracious answer, which will freshly bind us to pray and use all lawful 
endeavors for the blessing of God upon you and the present govern- 
ment. 

" We will conclude, most Honorable, our humble petition with the 
hearty acknowledgments of the goodness of God towards us, who hath 
put into your hearts graciously to confer upon us so many undeserved 
favors and great privileges, from time to time, in helping on the great 
work of God here amongst us, in taking off the customs from us, in 
enlarging your fund of bounty towards us for the propagating of the 
gospel amongst the natives with us, which work God prospereth beyond 
expectation in so few years ; in doing us that justice in stopping all 
appeals from hence to you, in sending over many servants to us, in 
vouchsafing to have a tender care over us upon all occasions; for 
these, and for all other manifold encouragements received from the 
most honorable court of Parliament, as we are bound to praise and 
magnify the name of our good God, so we acknowledge it our bounden 
duty, not only to be heartily thankful to the most honorable court, but 
ever to pray, that the Lord (if it be his good pleasure) will so establish 
you the supreme authority of that Commonwealth, that, all your enemies 



404 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiii 

body of Puritans from Massachusetts would keep in subjec- 
tion the conquered Irish, and possibly step by step might 
extinguish the Roman idolatry, as they considered it, in that 
beautiful but benighted country. 

The lord general, Oliver Cromwell, on the 29th of May, 
1650, embarked at Youghall in Ireland, for England, after 
an extraordinary conquest of that country, requiring only 
nine months, at the end of a war of nine years, in which 
country the ruins of castles, churches, monasteries, and other 
establishments yet remain as abundant memorials of the 
havoc and desolation which he wrought, without mercy, upon 
that unfortunate country and people. The present feeling 
towards Cromwell and his memory is well expressed by the 
following language of a native : " So Ossian went, and he 
wondered grately to see such a many ould castles in ruins — 
for ye see, your honors, 't was after Cromwell went through 
the country like a blast ; bad luck to his seed, breed, and 
generation : Amin ! " 

The lord general having offered to these Massachusetts 
people, forlorn and desolate, in the wilderness of America, 
an exchange of home in the Emerald Isle, already conquered, 
prostrate, and productive as a garden, was no doubt amazed 
at their answer to his tempting proposition. 

They praise his great achievements ; they give to him 
seven reasons why in their opinion such a change will not 
tend to the glory of God. 

First. They came to enjoy the liberties of the gospel, 
which they have done for twenty-three years, " so that there 

being subdued, you may rule in peace and prosperity to his glory and 
your own comfort here on earth, and everlastingly reign with him in 
glory hereafter, which are the earnest desires and fervent prayers of 
" Most Honorable, 

" Your humble servants, 

"J. E. [John Endicott.] 
T. D. [Thomas Dudley.] 
Ed. R. [Edward Rawson, Secretary.] 
" In the name and of the Court." 
(Hutchinson, i. 176, 516; Mass. Col. Rec, iv. 72, 73.) 



1651] NO REASON TO REMOVE TO IRELAND 405 

is no solid ground for any defect therein that we know, that 
should occasion a remove." 

Second. God has blest them with food, " so that poverty 
cannot truly be alleged to be a ground of removal." 

Third. Not a more healthy place exists ; want of health is 
no ground. 

Fourth. Peace abounds ; war is no cause of departure. 

Fifth. The ordinances both in church and commonwealth 
are maintained ; spreading errors in judgment are sup- 
pressed ; therefore no defect in these. 

Sixth. Indians are converted ; they cannot turn their 
backs upon so hopeful and glorious a work. 

Lastly. " The great noise and report of so many invited, 
and intending to transplant themselves into Ireland," have 
injured the reputation of the colony as to the productiveness 
of its territory, and people are not mindful of the good gifts 
of God to them during these many years. Yet there is 
freedom under the law to depart ; they do not hinder, but 
they give them their feelings and opinions. 

" Furthermore, we humbly petition your Excellence to be 
pleased, to show us what favor God shall be pleased to direct 
you unto on our behalf, to the most Honorable Parliament, 
unto whom we have now presented a petition. The copy of 
it verbatim, we are bold to send herewith, that, if God so 
please, we may not be hindered in our comfortable proceed- 
ings in the work of God here in this wilderness. [Such as 
issue warrants in any name but that of Massachusetts or 
suffer an amendment of the charter.] Wherein, as for other 
favors we shall be bound to pray, that the Captain of the host 
of Israel may be with you and your whole army, in all your 
great enterprises, to the glory of God, the subduing of his 
and your enemies, and your everlasting peace and comfort 
in Jesus Christ. In whom, we are, Right Honorable, 
" Your most obliged servants, 

"J. E." [John Endicott.] 

This letter was on behalf of the General Court. 1 
1 Hutchinson, i. 520. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

The record informs us that Dudley, by order of the Gen- 
eral Court, has the extent of his fifteen hundred acres of 
land on the Concord River determined from the bounds 
established by himself and Winthrop at the " Two Bro- 
thers " by the river side. 1 

The Rev. Mr. John Norton receives a recompense of re- 
ward of twenty pounds, May 22, for smiting William Pyn- 
chon's Book and extinguishing its heresy. 

The Court on the same day gives its attention to a day 
of fast and humiliation, for good and sufficient reasons duly 
set forth in the order, as follows : — 

" This Court, taking into consideration how far Satan pre- 
vails amongst us in respect of witchcraft, as also by drawing 
away some from the truth to the profession and practice of 
strange opinions, and also considering the state and condi- 
tion of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and the great things 
now in hand there, conceive it necessary that there be a day 
of humiliation throughout our jurisdiction in all the churches, 
and do therefore desire and order, that the eighteenth day 
of the Fourth Month [June] shall be set apart for that end 
and purpose, and that the deputies of the several towns give 
notice to the several elders of their churches of the Court's 
desire herein." 2 

The Book of Discipline, begun in the Cambridge synod 
of 1646, having been five years under consideration and 
criticism by all the churches, or offered to them for com- 
ment, and the objections which appeared, cast pell-mell into 
the alembic of the minds of the elders, and having come 
forth pure and unadulterated, with all its amendments and 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 247. 2 lb., iii. 239. 



1651-52] ACT TO PROTECT YOUTH 407 

accrued perfections attached, then on the fourteenth day of 
October, 165 1, received the testimony of the Court "that 
for the substance thereof it is that we have practiced and do 
believe." 1 

" To the end that good and wholesome beer be brewed, it 
is ordered that no person shall undertake the calling or work 
of brewing beer for sale, but only such as are known to have 
sufficient skill and knowledge in the art or mystery of a 
brewer." 2 

" Upon information of divers loose, vain, and corrupt per- 
sons, both such as come from foreign parts and also some 
others, here inhabiting and residing, which insinuate them- 
selves into the fellowship of the young people of this country, 
drawing them both by night and by day from their calling, 
studies, honest occupations, and lodging places, to the great 
dishonor of God, grief of their parents, masters, teachers, 
tutors, guardians, overseers, and such like," it is ordered that 
persons who do such things shall not go unpunished. 3 

A controversy of considerable importance arose in relation 
to baptism, in July, 165 1. As we have already observed, 
the colony had abundant reason to fear Anabaptists of the 
German or John Leyden sort, but they had to deal now with 
another order of Baptists, who in a very important particular 
entertained doctrines hostile at once to their church and 
state. 

The Anabaptism they had in the past been contending 
with had a wicked, anarchistic record, well known and easily 
available in resisting them, but the Baptists now confronting 
them were men without reproach, while their doctrine of 
baptism was subversive of the Puritan church constitution, 
and of their ideal of citizenship in the state. The Puritans 
denied the sacrament of baptism to the children of all per- 
sons who were not themselves in covenant with one of their 
churches. But the offspring of persons in such covenant 
took a Christian inheritance, as an estate falls to an heir. 
Baptism was held to be the sign of admission to the church, 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 240. 2 lb., Hi. 241. 8 lb., iii. 242. 



408 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

the vehicle of God's grace, without actual faith except of 
sponsors, because of the covenant and not otherwise. 

The revolutionary Baptists, on the other hand, held that 
personal conversion and personal faith were essential, which 
none but persons capable of thought and meditation could 
attain to. Hence infant baptism was useless and wicked, a 
remnant of church tradition and superstition. 

The General Court has set forth its complaint against 
Baptists. " Where the said persons did in open Court assert 
their former practice to have been according to the mind of 
God, . . . with making infant baptism a nullity, and thereby 
making us all to be unbaptized persons, and so consequently 
no regular churches, ministry, or ordinances, and also re- 
nouncing all our churches as being so bad and corrupt that 
they are not fit to be held communion with, denying to sub- 
mit to the government of Christ in the church, and enter- 
taining of those that are under church censure, thereby 
making the discipline of Christ in his churches to be of non 
effect ... all which to allow, would be the setting up a free 
school for seduction into ways of error, and casting off the 
government of Christ Jesus, in his own appointments, with 
a high hand, and opening a door for all sorts of abomina- 
tions to come in among us, not only to the disturbance of 
our ecclesiastical enjoyments, but also contempt of our civil 
order and the authority here established." * 

The issue was now, about July 31, 165 1, raised against the 
government by the distinguished John Clarke, of Newport, 
R. I., John Crandall, and Obadiah Holmes, who appeared as 
teachers of the heresy of baptism in Massachusetts, and were 
found guilty under the law, and duly sentenced. Friends 
paid the fines of two of them, and would have done so for 
Holmes, but he declined their generous assistance, and was 
duly whipped. It has been argued that this incursion into 
Massachusetts by Clarke was to achieve fame as a man per- 
secuted for righteousness' sake, to be used in England politi- 
cally against Coddington, in a contest which immediately 
1 Mass. Col. Rec, iv. part ii. 374; Hutch. Coll., i. *2i6. 



1651] THE BAPTISTS IN MASSACHUSETTS 409 

followed this one. 1 J. A. Doyle scouts this as far-fetched, 
because no contemporary had ever discovered it. The char- 
acter of Clarke makes this unreasonable. But distance often 
enables one, with a better perspective and greater knowledge 
of facts, to see what was unobserved by persons in the con- 
flict. 

Public sentiment has gone strongly against the Puritans 
in our humane and compassionate era. But no unprejudiced 
person can read the above story of the encounter of the gov- 
ernment with these men, as stated by it, and not feel that 
the Puritan had every reason to regard their holy experiment 
of government, and their most sacred church organization, 
in real danger of being overrun and destroyed. Indeed, 
everything that they had struggled for in this wilderness 
was to be blotted out unless they conquered in this battle. 
Neither was the war their own ; it was, in their judgment, 
the conflict of light with darkness, Christ with Belial. 

The Puritans were therefore persecuted in this onset. 
The three men, unless impelled by conscience, which we do 
not deny, might retire or never have appeared, but the gov- 
ernment had to stand its ground and take the shock, or 
perish. As Abraham Lincoln said 2 to the erring South, 
" You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn one to pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it." While this is true, we may, 
and ought to say, that it is the duty of all to obey the voice 
of God, and if the three worthies were under the higher law, 
thrones, principalities, and powers ought to be no hindrance 
to them, and martyrdom a holy privilege. God pity them 
both and pity us all, who have to contend blindly, seeing 
through a glass darkly, no matter how certain we are that 
we see clearly. 

Clarke had an offer of disputation not open and satisfac- 
tory, but it interests us, for Thomas Dudley's signature is 
among the others, dated the nth of Sixth Month, 165 1. 3 

1 Palfrey, ii. 351. 2 First Inaugural Address, 1861. 

3 Backus's Hist. Baptists, i. 185. The Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor 



410 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

The General Court is much disturbed again respecting 
extravagance in dress. " Although we acknowledge it to be 
a matter of much difficulty, in regard of the blindness of 
men's minds and the stubbornness of their wills, to set down 
exact rules to confine all sorts of persons, yet we cannot but 
account it our duty to commend unto all sorts of persons a 
sober and moderate use of those blessings which beyond our 
expectations the Lord hath been pleased to afford to us in 
this wilderness, and also to declare our utter detestation and 
dislike that men or women of mean condition, education, and 
callings should take upon themselves the garb of gentlemen, 
by wearing of gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at 
their knees, to walk in great boots ; or women of the same 
rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or scarfs, which though 
allowable to persons of greater estates or more liberal educa- 
tion, yet we cannot but judge it intolerable in persons of 
such like condition." It is therefore ordered by the Court 
that people shall dress according to their means, education, 
and rank, with many particulars respecting the same. 

This has a special interest for us because we can already 
discern the dissolving in this democratic atmosphere, this 
new social life, of the outward emblems and distinctions of 
ranks and orders and of previous conditions of servitude, 
arising from generations of poverty, or ignorance, or plebeian 
extraction. The offenders here, the law-makers, not so 
rapidly, however, for they had little or nothing to gain, were 
being ushered into hitherto unknown liberty, and had caught 
a f oregleam of the song of Burns : — 

said, in 1647, "There may be no toleration inconsistent with the public 
good. . . . And therefore here they are to be restrained from preaching 
such doctrine, if they mean to preserve their government, and the 
necessity of the thing will justify the lawfulness of the thing. If they 
think it to themselves, that cannot be helped, so long it is innocent as 
much as concerns the public; but if they preach it, they may be 
accounted authors of all the consequent inconveniences, and punished 
accordingly. No doctrine that destroys government is to be endured." 
(Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying, § 19, Works of Jeremy 
Taylor, v. 589, 590.) 



1651] THE LAST TIME DEPUTY GOVERNOR 411 

" Is there for honest poverty 

That hangs his head, an' a' that ? 
The coward slave, we pass him by — 

We dare be poor for a' that ! 
For a' that, an' a' that : 

Our toils obscure, an' a' that, 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man 's the gowd 1 for a' that." 

The United States has, from its first settlement, been the 
retreat of the oppressed of all nations and races ; men have 
been leveled up and down to a common honorable citizen- 
ship, where men of light complexion, at least, were equal 
before God and the law. 

Education has been the barrier against aristocracy, aided 
by the free alienation of land and the unbounded domain open 
to all. Here for many years an Arcadian simplicity, purity 
in morals, and fraternal equal fellowship existed, rights of 
persons and of property were respected, homes needed no 
defense by day, and doors were not bolted by night. 

It was determined by the Court that blasphemous expres- 
sions uttered in mid-ocean, half way to England, were beyond 
the jurisdiction of the Court. 2 

The annual election was held in Boston, May 22, 1652, at 
which Endicott was chosen governor, and Dudley, for the 
thirteenth and last time, deputy governor. He had, during 
the twenty-two years of his being in the colony, been either 
in the first or second office in the gift of the people for 
seventeen years, and a magistrate all the time, and an over- 
seer of Harvard College from its foundation. He was now 
seventy-six years old, and having endured many hardships it 
was right that he should have a brief respite from care and 
duty before his final departure, and that he should relinquish 
his hold upon the helm of state, committing it into the hands 
of his successors. 

The Court at this session made a statute affirming its faith 
in the Bible, and its purpose to punish all persons who should 
be guilty of denying its genuineness or authority. 
1 Gold. 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 257. 



4 i2 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

" The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament 
being written by the Prophets, Apostles, and holy men of 
God, inspired by the Holy Ghost, containing in them the 
infallible and whole will of God, which he purposed to make 
known to mankind, both for his own worship and service, 
and also for the instruction, obedience, faith, and salvation of 
man, which yet by heretics in former ages, and now of late 
by others, have been oppugned and denied so to be, which if 
connived at, would manifestly tend to the overthrow of all 
true religion and salvation, for the prevention of so heinous 
a crime, it is therefore hereby ordered and enacted," that 
such persons shall be punished as therein set forth. 1 

We must esteem it fortunate that Dudley, so near the end 
of his career, united with his associates in this testimony 
to the Bible, which had been their great statute book, the 
source, higher than the English common law, whence they 
had drawn most of their Body of Liberties. By this also 
they had been guided in the wilderness, when the way was 
doubtful and their charter gave no light to them, in the crea- 
tion and government of a state which was to be a beacon 
light in civilization for centuries. 

If by theocracy it is intended that the exercise of political 
authority in Massachusetts was by priests, as representing 
the Deity, it is an error clear and certain. The ministers 
were totally excluded from direct political place or power. 
They were called as scientific experts sometimes, indeed 
often, to declare the meaning of the written word as applied 
to the case in issue. The executive of a State may require 
the Supreme Court to interpret statutes ; no other body is 
so well qualified to do that service. But it would hardly be 
correct to say that the executive with his council, the Senate 
and House, or legislature, and all other departments were 
set aside while the Supreme Court governed the common- 
wealth. We know very well that Dudley and others did not 
hesitate to tell the ministers to mind their calling when they 
exceeded their professional duties. 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 259. 



1652] COINAGE OF MONEY IN MASSACHUSETTS 413 

If by theocracy is meant a Christian government in which 
God reigns, and his will is done, we hope it is still the sort 
of government which the American people confides in and 
desires above all things. God is not named in the Consti- 
tution, neither need he be, but it is important that he be 
reverenced as surely by the citizens of our country to-day as 
by the Massachusetts fathers, and that a sense of responsi- 
bility to the Divine Governor of all things be instilled in 
childhood, to create citizens who will be obedient to law and 
duty. 

The righteousness of the Old Testament and the gospel 
of the New Testament are as essential to government to-day 
as ever. Political corruption stalks away with bated breath 
where the golden rule prevails. 

The reliance of the General Court upon the infallible 
literalism of the Old Testament, the Biblical commonwealth, 
was an error which a greater light and " higher criticism " 
have made evident to us. The open Bible had only just 
reached the people in their day. But their faith in the 
Eternal, and that the Bible and a devout spirit were the sure 
and only ways to know his will, were essential facts which 
they accepted and acted upon with full assurance. 

The colony undertook this year the coinage of money, a 
thing it is said never attempted by a colony before. This 
was little regarded at the time in England, or by the British 
government ; they had quite enough on their hands at home. 
But when, finally, proceedings were undertaken by charges 
of Randolph, which vacated the charter of Massachusetts in 
1684, he was careful to say in item thirteen, "They persist 
in coining money, though they had asked forgiveness for that 
offense." 1 

The coining of money has always been a sovereign pre- 
rogative, and this is thought to be the first instance in his- 
tory of such colonial action ; and no one act of the colony 
more definitely asserts their assumed and growing independ- 
ence of the mother country than this. It is not quite clear 
1 Palfrey, iii. 376, note. 



4H THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

to us why certain shilling pieces of New England, as repre- 
sented in the " Illustrated History of the United States 
Mint at Philadelphia," by George G. Evans, should bear the 
date 1650, if the first shillings were coined, as it is claimed, 
at the house of John Hull, in Sheaffe Street, Boston, in 
1652. These were the old pine-tree shillings. Is it possible 
that New England shillings were coined in the Bermudas in 
1650 and known as " Sommer money," as all seem to agree 
that the first coinage in this country was in 1652 ? 

The wife of this John Hull was Judith, the daughter of 
Edmund Ouincy, after whom Point Judith in Rhode Island 
was named, and their daughter, Hannah Hull, received from 
her father for her wedding portion her weight in pine-tree 
shillings, or .£30,000. 

If the first shillings were made in the Bermudas in 1650, 
it was the administration of Dudley which first undertook 
to supply the colony with the much-needed, pure silver coin, 
which we are not yet prepared to declare ; but we think his 
courage was equal to it, if he deemed the need sufficient and 
the action wise. At any rate, there the shillings are with 
1650 clearly on their face, and no account of them yet found 
in the authorities. 1 

" Forasmuch as divers inhabitants within this jurisdiction, 
who have long continued amongst us receiving protection 
from this government, have, as we are informed, uttered 
offensive speeches whereby their fidelity to this government 
may justly be suspected, and also that divers strangers of 
foreign parts, of whose fidelity we have not the assurance 
which is commonly required by all governments, it is there- 
fore ordered " that the oath of fidelity be administered to 
such. 2 

The Court appoints a committee, under God's blessing, to 
be a council to consider of all sorts of trading and to consult 
about the best ways of improving the same. 3 The militia 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iv. 84, 104; G. G. Evans's U. S. Mint, S7l S. G. 
Drake's Hist, and Antiquities of Boston, 329. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 263. 8 lb., iii. 267. 



1652] SUPPORT OF THE COLLEGE 415 

regulations were carefully established in 1652. " The hus- 
band of Elizabeth Fairfield, being long since judged for some 
miscarriage of his to wear a rope about his neck during the 
Court's pleasure, upon her request to this Court, hath liberty 
granted him to lay the rope aside." 

Harvard College seeks money from England. 

" Mrs. Dorothy Pester, whose husband went into England 
some ten years since, and was never to this day heard of, 
upon her petition to this Court, hath liberty granted her 
to marry when God by his providence shall afford her an 
opportunity." * 

" A declaration concerning the advancement of learning 
in New England by the General Court. If it should be 
granted that learning, namely skill in the tongues and liberal 
arts, is not absolutely necessary for the being of a common- 
wealth and churches, yet we conceive that the judgment of 
the godly wise, it is beyond all question, not only laudable, 
but necessary for the being of the same. And although 
New England (blessed be God) is competently furnished 
(for this present age) with men in place, and, upon occasion 
of death or otherwise, to make supply of magistrates, asso- 
ciates in Courts, physicians, and officers in the common- 
wealth, and of teaching elders in churches, yet for the better 
discharge of our trust for the next generation, and so to 
posterity, being the first founders do wear away apace, and 
that it grows more and more difficult to fill places of most 
eminence as they are empty or wanting, and this Court 
finding by manifest experience, that though the number of 
scholars at our college doth increase, yet as soon as they are 
grown up, ready for public use, they leave the country, and 
seek for and accept of employment elsewhere, so that if 
timely provision be not made it will tend much to the dis- 
paragement, if not to the ruin of this commonwealth. It is 
therefore ordered " that collections of money be taken to 
support the president of Harvard and certain fellows and 
poor scholars. 2 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 277. 2 lb., iii. 279, 280. 



416 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

It was ordered that verbal contracts for the sale of houses 
and land must be discontinued, and such bargains henceforth 
be by deed in writing, acknowledged and recorded. 1 A 
patent right is issued by the Court to John Clarke for three 
years, on an "invention for saving of firewood and warming 
of rooms with little cost." 

" This Court taking into consideration sundry reasons why 
the churches should set apart a solemn day of humiliation, 
especially for three reasons following : The loss of many per- 
sons by unwonted diseases ; secondly, in respect of unusual 
storms and continued rains ; thirdly, want of supply of meet 
persons for public service ; fourthly, for the worldly-minded- 
ness, oppression, and hard-heartedness feared to be amongst 
us ; as also in regard of England and the wars there, the 
increase of heresies and errors, &c, and that God would give 
us favor in the hearts of the Parliament, &c. In conclusion, 
that God would supply us with such commodities as are 
wanting, &c. This day to be observed, ioth : 9th next." 2 

It seems that one Powell was thought by the Court to be 
wanting in education to preach or exercise his gift in Boston, 
and his case reveals the fact that New England had testified 
to the English Puritans respecting their neglect of learning, 
for the Court says, " and considering the humor of the times 
in England inclining to discourage learning, against which 
we have borne testimony, this Court, in our petition to the 
Parliament, which we should contradict if we should approve 
of such proceedings amongst ourselves," as allowing an un- 
educated man to occupy a pulpit. 

The following seems to be as funny as an Irish bull of the 
first quality. " Martha Brenton desiring an Irish boy and 
girl, about the age of twelve years, for servants, hath her 
request granted, so as the parties are proved before two 
magistrates to be born of English parents." 3 

The name of Thomas Dudley disappears from the record 
in the year 1653, excepting the following entry in honor of 
his memory : — 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 280. 2 lb., iii. 287, 288. 3 lb., iii. 294. 



i6s3] DEATH AND BURIAL 417 

" It is ordered by this Court, that the treasurer shall pay 
unto the present secretary six pounds for powder sold unto 
the captain of the castle, expended at Mr. Dudley's funeral, 
and that, according to a former agreement with him, both 
for price and pay, this to be paid out of this country rate 
now in being, and the captain of the castle is to take up his 
bond." 1 

Dudley died Sunday night, July 31, 1653, and his funeral 
took place at Roxbury on the 6th of August following. 2 He 
was in the seventy-seventh year of his age. 

He was buried in one of the oldest cemeteries in New 
England, at the corner of Washington and Eustis streets, in 
Roxbury. 

" On entering the cemetery the first tomb that meets the 
eye, and the one upon the highest ground, is covered with 
an oval slab of white marble bearing the name of Dudley. 
In it were laid the remains of Governors Thomas and Joseph 
Dudley, Chief Justice Paul Dudley, and Colonel William 
Dudley, a prominent political leader a century and a half ago. 
The original inscription plate is said to have been of pewter, 
and to have been taken out and run into- bullets by the pro- 
vincial soldiers during the siege of Boston." 

Dudley has suffered in his reputation by the writers of 
poetry, and, strange to say, without any intention on their 
part to defame his memory, but to eulogize him. The most 
noted of these effusions is as follows : — 

" Here lies Thomas Dudley, that trusty old stud, 
A bargain 's a bargain, and must be made good." 

These lines no doubt came from the original inscription on 
the pewter plate on his tomb. 

Most persons who read them receive two unfortunate im- 
pressions respecting their meaning, and assuming that they 
express the opinions of his contemporaries, do not care to 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 329. 

3 Rec. of Rev. S. Danforth of the First Church in Roxbury; New- 
England Genealog. and Antiq. Reg., xxxiv. 86. 



418 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

know much more about him. Furthermore, these lines have 
long been deemed necessary to a good description of Dud- 
ley. The first thought which the ordinary reader gains is 
that Dudley was such a brute of a man that, by metaphor, 
he is described as a horse, ugly and ungovernable. The sec- 
ond line suggests the character of Shylock, — a man who 
entangles his fellow-men in unjust contracts, as spiders snare 
insects in webs, intent upon their destruction without mercy. 
Such interpretation is an error. 

Mr. James Savage, in his note on these lines, 1 says they 
were the work of Governor Belcher. 2 They are not the 

1 Winthrop, i. *50. 

2 Jonathan Belcher was governor of Massachusetts and of New 
Hampshire from 1730 to 1741. The States were then united. He was 
governor of New Jersey in 1747. He was born in 1681, twenty-eight 
years after the death of Governor Dudley, and the probability of his 
having written his epitaph, being without personal knowledge of him, 
is certainly very small. It would not have been done by him before he 
was twenty years old ; and if he did thus write it after the lapse of half 
a century, it ought to have no weight or importance. But his use of it 
seems to carry abundant evidence that he did not write it, and leave a 
reasonable assurance that he is quoting from another. He no doubt 
quoted from the ancient inscription on Dudley's tomb in Roxbury. 

Belcher was in 1732 an extensive owner in the Simsbury copper 
mines, now in East Granby, Conn., about eighteen miles northwest of 
Hartford. These mines are worthy of a little note. The company, it 
is said, was organized under the first charter for mining in this country. 
Belcher, it is said, disbursed in this enterprise about sixty thousand 
dollars. Trumbull says that " the mine at Simsbury was dug until the 
veins of copper ceased. A prodigious cavity was made, which has 
since become the famous prison called Newgate. This has been of 
much greater advantage to the State than all the copper dug out of it." 
(Trumbull's Conn., ii. 45.) It is claimed that the first coinage of money 
in this country was accomplished at this mine ; but doubtless the Mas- 
sachusetts pine-tree shilling in 1652 was earlier. The mine was trans- 
formed to a prison about 1750. It was one of the excuses in all the 
colonies for their unusual punishments, that they had no places of suf- 
ficient strength to secure and retain prisoners. This use of this dismal 
place marks at that period a change in the treatment of criminals in 
Connecticut. Here, deep down into the earth, were sent in the Revolu- 
tionary War the Royalists, some of the best men of Connecticut, who 



i653] EULOGISTIC LINES ON HIS TOMB 419 

composition of Governor Belcher. 1 He quoted them in 
admiration of the illustrious character of Dudley, whom he 
esteemed as reliable in his generation as Washington was 
regarded in a later age. Belcher, because he was weary with 
treacherous servants and with breaches of contracts, which 
ought to be sacred (indeed, the Constitution of the United 
States took the power away from sovereign States even to 
impair existing contracts), mentions as an illustration that 
Dudley was accounted worthy to have these memorable lines 
placed on his tomb, which Belcher conceived to be in the 
highest degree eulogistic. Let us then read the lines as 
he interpreted them. " Stud," as here used, means pillar, 
support, or prop. " The church of the living God, the pillar 
and the ground of truth." 2 The word had at that time a 
very appropriate use as the trunk, stem, or stick of a tree. 

had long had the confidence of the home government. (Trumbull's 
Conn., ii. 40-45 ; Lippinc, xxvii. 290 ; Mag. Amer. Hist, xv. 321.) 

It appears in the Belcher Papers, Mass. Hist. Coll., 6th series, vi. 
part i. 450, 459, 464, 466, 467, 471, 472, 474, 478, 479, that Belcher, dur- 
ing the years 1731 and 1732, at which time he was governor of Massa- 
chusetts, and resided in Boston, was in constant trouble with the labor- 
ers in Simsbury mine. He charges them very often with villainy, theft, 
and dishonor. It seems to be a perpetual story of bad faith and failure 
to perform contracts, and in his extreme vexation with the treacherous 
miners he wrote a letter to Joseph Pitkin, an officer or agent at the 
mine, from which we make the following extracts : He writes of the 
" villainy of the men. . . . My consideration was not whether they could 
live by the bargain, but whether I could. I knew it was not my busi- 
ness to maintain a crew of rogues to my ruin. . . . And another thing, 
you have practiced to my hurt, viz.: too great a fear and compassion 
least you should hurt poor men ; and this is hardly justifiable while you 
acted for another, and not for yourself. A man may do as he pleases 
for himself ; but where a man is in trust for another, in matters of deal- 
ing, strict justice is the rule, without any consideration of the circum- 
stances of the parties. It was wrote over Governor Thomas Dudley's 
tomb." And he then quotes the lines given on page 417, placing 
quotation marks over them. Here is the strongest evidence that he 
was not the author ; since he quotes the lines, he does not claim them, 
but distinctly quotes in 1732 from another, — he says from the tomb. 

1 See Belcher Papers, 479. 2 1 Tim. iii. 15. 



420 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

Dudley was one of the trunks which held up the goodly tree 
of the Massachusetts commonwealth during its first twenty- 
three years. 

Edmund Spenser, who was a contemporary with Dudley, 
wrote : — 

" Seest not thilke same Hawthorne studde, 
How bragly it beginnes to budde, 
And utter his tender head ? " a 

The word " trusty " means a reliable pillar, safe in an 
emergency, as a trusty servant or friend. The upright post 
was really a good metaphor to suggest the firm, upright, and 
reliable character of Dudley. Governor Belcher affirmed 
that so great, good, and exemplary a man as Dudley held to 
the sacred and inviolable obligations of contracts, and that 
without this no business could be transacted, for no man 
could otherwise make business calculations ; there could be 
no such thing as credit, the present foundation of all the 
business in the world. Dudley had the distinguished honor, 
when he had departed this life, to have some appreciative 
friends, in memory of his great example, tenderly and rever- 
ently place those lines upon his tomb 2 as a monumental trib- 
ute to the stability and integrity of his character, that all 
the world hereafter might know of his illustrious record, and 
imitate it. These were the thoughts of Governor Belcher, 
when in the next generation he pointed out the notable ex- 
ample of Governor Dudley to his irresponsible associates. 
They have in recent years been read backwards, and their 
meaning distorted from homage and eulogy to odium and 
reproach. 

1 Shep. Cal. March. 

3 Charles M. Ellis, in the History of Roxbury, p. 102, relates that 
" It is said there was on his tomb in the graveyard at the corner of 
Eustis and Washington streets (Roxbury) a leaden plate that had an 
epitaph upon it [consisting of the lines under consideration], which was 
torn off and run up into bullets in the Revolution." If the tradition had 
foundation, the seeming desecration was the work of American patriots, 
in a moment of pressing need, in the defense of freedom in Massachu- 
setts, and the act was hallowed by the cause and the hour. 



1653] R EV. NATHANIEL ROGERS'S ENCOMIUM 421 

" Here, side by side with the apostle Eliot and Robert 
Calef, were laid the Dudleys, the Warrens, and others of 
lesser note." 2 

1 Memorial Hist, of Boston, i. 418. Mention of Mr. Dudley's home 
in Roxbury has already been made in this work (page 258). 

" Within the compass of this lustre [five years] was the Massachu- 
setts deprived of two eminent and worthy persons, the one in the magis- 
tracy [Governor Dudley], the other in the ministry [Rev. John Cotton] ; 
which loss was the more to be lamented, in that they left neither of 
them any one in each of their capacities, equal with themselves. 

" Mr. Dudley, an ancient gentleman, one of the principal founders 
and pillars of the Massachusetts colony, was called from his station, 
July 31, 1653, in the 77th year of his age, eminently qualified with those 
choice virtues fit for the discharge of the trust, to which he was oft 
called, and wherein he always approved himself a lover of justice, and 
friend of truth, an enemy of all disorder, and that always bore a special 
antipathy against all heresy and corrupt doctrine ; which made him 
conclude his own epitaph with this character of himself, ' I died no lib- 
ertine ; ' and which gave occasion to a reverend person of the clergy 
[Rev. Nathaniel Rogers — Mather says ' E. R.,' (Mag., i. 124) Ezekiel 
Rogers, but Hubbard is probably correct ; he was the son-in-law of 
Nathaniel, and was contemporary with Dudley ; Nathaniel was famous 
for Latin poetry, and was Dudley's pastor at Ipswich] to honor him 
with this double encomium, as well of English as Latin poesy. 

THOMAS DUDLEY. 

Hold, mast, we dy. 
When swelling gusts of Antinomian breath, 
Had well nigh wreck'd this little bark to death, 
When oars 'gan crack, and anchors, then we cry, 
Hold firm, brave mast, thy stand, or else we die. 
Our orth'dox mast did hold, we did not die ; 
Our mast now roll'd by th' board (poor bark,) we cry, 
Courage, our pilot, lives, who stills the waves, 
Or midst the surges still his bark he saves. 

EPITAPHIUM. 

Heluo librorum, lectorum bibliotheca 

Communis, sacrs syllabus historian. 

Ad mensam comes, hinc facundus, rostra disertus, 

Non cumulus verbis, pondus acumen erat, 

Morum acris censor, validus defensor amansque, 

Et sanae, et canae, catholicae fidei. 

Angli-novi columen, summum decus, atque senatus, 

Thomas Dudleius conditur hoc tumulo. N. R. 



422 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

Mrs. Catherine Dudley, the widow of Governor Dudley, 
and eight of his children survived him, as follows : Rev. 
Samuel Dudley, Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, Mrs. Patience Denni- 
son, Mrs. Sarah Pacey, and Mrs. Mercy Woodbridge, by his 
first wife, Dorothy ; and Mrs. Deborah Wade, Governor 
Joseph Dudley, and Paul Dudley, by his last wife Catherine. 1 
He left, it seems, the largest estate in Roxbury, three hun- 
dred and fifty-six acres. 2 

[Translation of the above, as follows : A devourer of books, in him- 
self a choice collector ; a compend of sacred history ; a companion for 
the table, hence eloquent ; a master of rhetoric, not merely a mass of 
words ; he was weighty, keen, a sharp censor of morals, a strong and 
loving defender of a rational and pure catholic faith, the sturdiest sup- 
port and ornament of New England ; Thomas Dudley lies buried within 
this tomb.] 

" He was the most resolved champion of the truth, above all the gen- 
tlemen in the country, in the years 1636 and 1637, at which time was 
New England's crisis; when many, under pretense of crying up the 
free grace of God in the work of man's salvation, had well-nigh cash- 
iered all the grace of God out of their hearts, endeavoring to vilify the 
grace of sanctification, that thereby they might exalt the grace of justi- 
fication." (Rev. Wm. Hubbard's General Hist, of New Eng., Mass. 
Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d series, vi. chap. lxii. 552, 553.) 

These words of Hubbard have contributed unjustly to make Dud- 
ley, single and alone, the victim of Antinomian vengeance in recent 
years. 

An epitaph on Thomas Dudley by his daughter, Anne Bradstreet : — 

HIS EPITAPH. 

Within this tomb a Patriot lies 

That was both pious, just and wise, 

To truth a shield, to right a wall, 

To sectaries a whip and maul, 

A magazine of history, 

A prizer of good company, 

In manners pleasant and severe ; 

The good him lov'd, the bad did fear, 

And when his time with years was spent, 

If some rejoic'd, more did lament. 

1 Dean Dudley's Hist. Dudley Family, i. 276. See Appendix B, C, 
D, E, F, G, H, I. 

2 Early records of Roxbury, N. E. Genealog. and Antiq. Reg., ii. 54. 



1653] WILL OF DUDLEY 423 

His will was in his own handwriting, and is duly recorded 
and preserved in the Suffolk probate office, Boston, Mass. 
He named his "worthy and beloved friends, John Eliot, 
teacher of the church at Roxbury, and Samuel Danforth, 
pastor of the said church," among his executors. He in- 
voked in them that just and equitable spirit which had 
been the rule of his life. He says : " Entreating them, as 
my last request, that they will do for me and mine as I 
would have done for them and theirs in the like case." The 
last codicil to this will was only thirteen days before his 
decease. But previous dates in April and May attached to 
the will assure us that he realized that his departure was 
near. He was in office as deputy governor until May 18, 
only two months and thirteen days previous to his death, 
and his absence from office is conclusive evidence that he 
was ill, or too feeble for service. 

The following lines from the will are of great public inter- 
est, like the dying words of the Commander to the Old 
Guard. Some persons will read nothing in them but nar- 
rowness and bigotry. It was the day of small things, but 
it was the seed-sowing, the planting, of a nation possibly to 
be greater than any other in the previous history of the 
world : — 

" For my soul I commend it into the hand of my God, 
in whom I have believed, whom I have loved, which he 
hath promised to receive in Jesus Christ, my Redeemer and 
Saviour, with whom I desire ever to be, leaving this testi- 
mony behind me, for the use and example of my posterity, 
and any other upon whom it may work, that I have hated 
and do hate every false way in religion, not only the old 
idolatry and superstition of Popery, which is wearing away, 
but much more (as being much worse) the new heresies, 
blasphemies, and errors of late sprung up in our native coun- 
try of England, and secretly received and fostered more than 
I wish they were here." This document, from beginning to 
end, is written in that clear, terse language which well sus- 
tains his early reputation for skill in drafting public papers. 



424 THOMAS DUDLEY [ch. xxxiv 

He certainly had no superior in this respect among his asso- 
ciates in the government. His sincere conviction of the 
danger from heresy to their work in church and state is 
vigorously and weightily stated here, in his last appeal to 
his countrymen. Public sentiment has long been against 
his theory of the true method of action by which to keep a 
church and state pure and safe ; a larger territory and popu- 
lation has contributed to the change ; it welcomes now, in- 
stead, free speech and a free press, to the very verge of libel 
and slander, and tolerates nearly every doctrine under the 
sun, in science and religion. 

There is great and ancient authority for letting both the 
tares and the wheat grow together, but there have been 
times when the only possible way of saving the wheat was 
by violence and revolution ; or, in other words, a reversal in 
public sentiment which set the other way with the force of 
a tide in the ocean. 



CONCLUSION 

The assumption which is the groundwork of the Ameri- 
can portion of this biography of Thomas Dudley is that he 
and the colony of Massachusetts were inseparable during 
the period from 1630 to 1653. 

If Lord Byron correctly said, — 

" I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me ; " l 

if Lord Tennyson properly affirmed, — 

"lama part of all that I have met ; " 2 

then for stronger, more essential reasons a person may be 
said to be an integral part of his acts, and Thomas Dudley 
inseparable from every important event in this period of the 
history of Massachusetts. His handiwork, in common with 
that of Winthrop and others, lies at the beginning of 
the institutions of Massachusetts, and attended them beyond 
the period of her adolescence to the fixed development which 
has made her character memorable in history. 

Neither he nor Winthrop entertained the autocratic idea 
of Louis XIV. of France, when he exclaimed, "I am the 
state," although many persons have seemed to regard Win- 
throp as such. This was their work in company with their 
associates, among whom they were the two most conspicu- 
ous. 

There is an inscription in Latin to Sir Christopher Wren, 
the architect of Saint Paul's Cathedral, in London, over its 
north porch, ending with these words, which comprehend 

1 Childe Harold, chap. iii. 

2 Ulysses. 



426 THOMAS DUDLEY 

his merit and his fame : " If thou seekest his monument, look 
around." The greatest orator Massachusetts ever had (we 
might as truly say, or any other modern state) in a memor- 
able moment, when her character was assailed in the national 
capitol, exclaimed, "There she is. Behold her, and judge 
for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it by 
heart. The past at least is secure." 

Massachusetts is herself the memorial of her founders ; to 
comprehend her annals is to know, appreciate, and admire 
them. 

In the hands of Winthrop, Dudley, and their associates 
she grew to be almost a sovereign commonwealth ; she 
determined without foreign advice the issues of war and of 
peace ; she joined in a confederation with sister colonies ; 
she exercised the sovereign prerogative of coining money ; 
while without hesitation she taxed her citizens and their 
estates, she contributed nothing to the treasury of Eng- 
land, she created her own laws, with a respectful acknow- 
ledgment of their subordination to the supreme authority of 
the laws of England, but resisted and disclaimed all rights 
of appeal to foreign jurisdiction ; she had in the Body of 
Liberties twelve capital laws, involving the issues of life and 
death ; and in her Laws and Liberties, published in 1649, * s 
a statute against rebellion, conspiracy, invasion, and insur- 
rection, in effect, including treason, with a death penalty 
attached to the violation of the law ; she raised armies and 
equipped them, and fortified her ports, and collected tribute 
of her neighbors ; she received agents of France and of Hol- 
land, and appointed agents to negotiate with them and make 
treaties of peace and consult about alliances for mutual pro- 
tection ; when she felt that her liberties were in peril from 
British intervention, she always resorted to a Fabian policy, 
and to fasting and prayer, and thus retained her first charter, 
as a bulwark against English supremacy, until 16S4. 1 

There were thirty-one towns, or units, of our system, repre- 
sented in the General Court at the decease of Dudley, in 
1 Maverick's Description of N. E., 1660, 19. 



CONCLUSION 427 

1653. The government of Massachusetts was a representa- 
tive republic, with the departments of executive, judiciary, 
and legislative authority. The ministers had no political 
power ; they had, however, great influence because of their 
extensive knowledge and excellent character. They were 
also very numerous early in the history of the colony. 

Massachusetts established a common school system at 
that time in advance of all the world, supported by public 
money, and enforced attendance to the schools was exacted 
by law. 

It is well to remember, also, her relative importance in the 
New England colonies. More than half of the population 
of the entire confederacy was in Massachusetts, and more 
than half of the wealth. She was the mother of states, 
Rhode Island and Connecticut being her offspring, while 
Maine and New Hampshire were an integral portion of her, 
and Vermont was not yet settled. 

Plymouth Rock was the beginning, in 1620, without which 
the other colonies might never have existed, while without 
the "great emigration" to Massachusetts, in 1630, the Plym- 
outh Colony might have perished. 1 

Plymouth was the first in American church independ- 
ency, 2 and her people endured greater privations and suffer- 
ing than those of any other New England colony. But she 
was not otherwise conspicuous. She has contributed her 
full share towards making Massachusetts great and strong, 
but after all she has been tributary and incidental, and not 
the trunk and main body of character and influence, 3 the 
orators of Forefathers' Day to the contrary notwithstanding. 
She was as sound in the faith as Massachusetts, but more 
tender towards Mrs. Hutchinson, the Baptists, and Quakers. 

Massachusetts not only took the lead in population and 
wealth, but in education, in political organization, 4 in its 
code of laws, 5 in that unconquerable energy which captured 
Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, which brought the colony 

1 Hutchinson, ii. 476, 477. 2 lb., ii. 467. 3 lb., ii. 468, 469. 

4 lb., ii. 467. 5 lb., ii. 463. 



428 THOMAS DUDLEY 

to the front in King Philip's War (though Plymouth suffered 
fearfully), and made the State most prominent in the War 
of the Revolution 1 and in the Civil War, and later in philan- 
thropy, in charities, and in literature. The leadership has 
emanated from Boston, the " Hub," and not from Plymouth. 

What Governor Hutchinson has said of the distinguished 
men of Plymouth applies with still greater force to the 
eminent founders of Massachusetts. " I am not preserving 
from oblivion the names of heroes, whose chief merit is the 
overthrow of cities, provinces, and empires, but the names 
of the founders of flourishing towns and a colony, if not of 
the whole British empire in America." 2 

The existence of these English colonies for a time was 
uncertain, as they were beset with enemies. The Dutch 
were on the west, the French on the east and north, the 
Spaniards on the west and south, and the Indians every- 
where. If the story of our country is the story of the growth 
of modern liberty, the importance of the Massachusetts 
colony at this critical juncture is measureless. 

We have thus briefly presented a few characteristics of 
Massachusetts as she came forth from the hands of her 
great master builders ; her progress we have been following 
through these pages in the life of one of the greatest of her 
founders. Lord Macaulay said, " The Puritans were perhaps 
the most remarkable body of men the world has ever known." 
Here certainly was their greatest and most permanent work. 
Royalty overwhelmed them in England, but both they and 
the remarkable productions of their labors survive here, since 
the democratic republic still exists. 

We are ungrateful children if, with the magnificent inher- 
itance which they have transmitted to us, we, without becom- 
ing candor, deride their bigotry or make light of their zeal ; 
if we measure them by the standard of civilization and public 
opinion of our age. 

Edward Everett said, "I reverence, this side of idolatry, 

1 Anglo-Saxon Freedom, Hosmer, 216, note 1. 

2 Hutchinson, ii. 463. 



CONCLUSION 429 

the wisdom and fortitude of the revolutionary and constitu- 
tional leaders, but I believe we ought to go back beyond 
them all for the real framers of the commonwealth. I 
believe that its foundation stones, like those of the capitol of 
Rome, lie deep and solid, out of sight at the bottom of the 
wall ; Cyclopean work — the work of the Pilgrims [Puritans] 
— with nothing below them but the rock of ages." 1 

We have noticed in an early portion of this work the very 
creditable career of Thomas Dudley in England before he 
came to America, at the age of fifty-four years. We then 
congratulated ourselves that at that mature period in life 
the remainder of his journey would be secure, and that we 
might safely conclude that he would be guided by the same 
wisdom and sound judgment which had distinguished his 
course in the past. We were then sure that what he had 
already achieved, his well-established principle, manifest 
tendencies, and that genuine character which inspires confi- 
dence in all of us were guarantees of his great future in 
America. 

Nothing less than the testimony of two witnesses to any 
overt act of wrong-doing, charged against him in the face of 
this record, can carry conviction to the minds of those who 
are informed respecting him. Winthrop's Journal, unsup- 
ported in matters of controversy, is to be read thoughtfully. 
Such is the force and influence of well-established and thor- 
oughly grounded character in human society. We firmly 
believe that his American record sustains our expectations 
thus early formed, and that our confidence in his future was 
not then misplaced. 

The nations of antiquity deified the founders of their 
states, but there are indifferent citizens in the old common- 
wealth who detract from the just merits of her heroes and 
planters with every refinement of severity. " God sifted a 
whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this 
wilderness," said the Rev. William Stoughton in 1669. "God 
had sifted three kingdoms to find wheat for this planting," 
1 Oration on the Settlement of Mass., 243. 



430 THOMAS DUDLEY 

sang H. W. Longfellow. Emerson has said that "to be 
great is to be misunderstood." 

Dudley belonged to that immediate age after the Bible 
came to the English common people. He was never blessed 
with the light of "higher criticism," but read the Bible in 
childlike simplicity and belief. He was also a sincere, ear- 
nest Calvinist. He breathed the same air, read the same 
literature, and heard the same ministers preach as his asso- 
ciates. He delighted in the preaching of the greatest and 
most learned Puritan divines, both in England and in 
America. 

The author is convinced, after careful examination, that 
the incidents and poems which have been the stock material 
for writers during many years, used, repeated, and enlarged 
upon to discredit the name and character of Governor Dud- 
ley, have been misconstrued and misunderstood. " Let not 
the land once proud of him insult him now." The aim and 
purpose to do justice, tardy indeed, to the life and character 
of Governor Dudley has been an important incident in our 
work, as we intimated at the beginning that it would be. It 
has been our earnest purpose to have the truth spoken at 
last respecting him. 

Those lines found in Dudley's pocket after his death, 
which we have given, are usually quoted to prove his bigotry, 
respecting which one author says, " wherein the intolerance 
of that age is neatly summed up." This author uses certain 
of these grim epithets, and then says in effect that these 
lines by Dudley "neatly sum up the intolerance of that 
age." If we understand him, Dudley is no more intolerant 
in his verses, at least, than his neighbors in their opinions ; 
and if the lines do really express the height and depth of 
their intolerant thought, he ought not to be selected to re- 
ceive from this age vicarious punishment for all the heaped- 
up sins in bigotry of his period. If, on the other hand, it is 
the purpose of these critics to single out Dudley as the fore- 
most Puritan, more truly representative of his age than any 
one else, then we claim that before the casting of stones at 



CONCLUSION 431 

him began, it should have been publicly announced that he 
suffered in the stead and behalf of his most illustrious con- 
temporaries and for the errors of an intolerant age, as its 
special hero. 

The fact is, as we have shown, that his lines were intended 
to call attention to public danger from fanatics. For two 
reasons : people were more exposed then to danger than we 
are. They had no prisons or asylums ; and society was then 
so limited in extent that a few ungovernable people could do 
greater harm than would be possible to-day in the midst of 
millions of inhabitants. 1 

Mr. Savage says, in effect, that Dudley was penurious. 
But he had judgments of the Court against Winthrop and 
freely gave the claims to him. He placed a bond upon his 
estate and headed the list of subscriptions to secure the per- 
manency of the Roxbury Latin School. Morton says that 
he served the. public many years at his own cost. These are 
a few instances, and more might be cited with a confirmation 
from his written words, to show that he was not selfish or 
mean, but on the other hand in a high degree public-spirited. 
His emigration itself confutes the accusation. 

" One of thy Founders, him New-England know, 
Who staid thy feeble sides when thou wast low, 
Who spent his estate, his strength, and years with care 
That After-comers in them might have share. 
True patriot of this little Commonweal, 
Who is 't can tax thee aught, but for thy zeal ? " 2 

1 These hostile writers seem, through centuries, to have hung on 
Governor Thomas Dudley, " as if increase of appetite had grown by 
what it fed upon." This is an ancient as well as modern experience. 
A Roman poet two centuries before Christ discovered it, " for enemies 
carry about slander not in the form in which it took its rise." But 
a nobler Roman said, "There is nothing which wings its flight so 
swiftly as calumny, nothing which is uttered with more ease ; nothing 
is listened to with more readiness, nothing dispersed more widely;" 
and Shakespeare declares, "Whose breath rides on the posting winds 
and doth belie all corners of the world." 

2 Anne Bradstreet. 



432 THOMAS DUDLEY 

The opinions formed of Dudley in his lifetime by his 
fellow-citizens, as we have said, are the only conclusive ones 
for or against him, since he has left little in writing by which 
to judge of his sentiments. These opinions, so far as we have 
discovered, are uniformly and strongly in his favor, with the 
slight exception of a few sentences in Winthrop's Journal, 
written in the heat of personal encounter. But in later 
years and cooler moments Winthrop has given his testimony 
greatly to the credit of Dudley. He knew Dudley more 
thoroughly than any one else. 

He says of him, " This gentleman was a man of approved 
wisdom and godliness and of much good service to the 
country, and therefore it was his due to serve in such honor 
and benefit as the country had to bestow." 1 

These words, " approved wisdom and godliness," possess 
an excellent flavor, considering their source ; and moreover 
they then had been ten years together in authority, in the 
most difficult and responsible period, consulting each other 
at every step, not always agreeing, but in those differences 
Dudley was, perhaps in every instance, approved by the 
Court and people. Their early bickerings were now passed 
and gone, they had settled down to their business of state- 
craft in earnest. 

We have through the diary of Winthrop the contemporary 
testimony in 1635 of Sir Harry Vane, supported by that of 
Governor John Haynes, Richard Bellingham, Cotton, Hooker, 
and Wilson, that " Dudley and Winthrop were those upon 
whom the weight of the affairs did lie," etc. 2 

1 Winthrop, ii. *3. 

2 lb., i. *i 77. Increase Mather, president of Harvard University, 
a contemporary of Thomas Dudley, pronounced him " a principal 
founder and pillar of the colony of Massachusetts, and as a nursing 
father of the churches." (Hist. Harv. Univ., by Josiah Quincy, i. 152.) 
Even Roger Williams, in 1640, when his trials in Massachusetts were 
ended, writes to Winthrop of his "much honored brother, Mr. Gov- 
ernor" [Dudley.] (Pub. Narr. Club, vi. 138.) 

The testimony of Dudley's neighbor, Nathaniel Morton, of Plymouth, 
is of great value. Morton, from his professional life of secretary of the 



CONCLUSION 433 

It is highly probable that the temporary unpopularity in 
Massachusetts of Governor Joseph Dudley, 1 the efficient 

Court, was in the very best position to estimate the value of men. His 
work, "New England's Memorial," has the approval of historians. He 
says : " Mr. Dudley, who was a principal founder and pillar of the 
colony of the Massachusetts, in New England, and sundry times gov- 
ernor and deputy governor of that jurisdiction, died at his home in 
Roxbury, July 31, 1653, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He 
was a person of quick understanding and solid judgment in the fear of 
the Lord. He was a lover of justice, order, the people, Christian reli- 
gion, — the supreme virtues of a good magistrate. 

" I. His love to justice appeared at all times, and in special upon the 
judgment-seat, without respect of persons in judgment ; and in his own 
particular transactions with all men he was exact and exemplary. 

" II. His zeal to order appeared in contriving good laws and faith- 
fully executing them upon criminal offenders, heretics, and undermin- 
ers of true religion. He had a piercing judgment to discover the wolf, 
though clothed with a sheepskin. 

"III. His love to the people was evident in serving them in a public 
capacity many years, at his own cost, and that as a nursing father to 
the churches of Christ. 

" IV. He loved the true Christian religion, and the pure worship of 
God, and cherished as in his bosom all godly ministers and Christians. 
He was exact in the practice of piety, in his person and family, all his 
life. In a word, he lived desired, and died lamented by all good men." 
(Nathaniel Morton's New England's Memorial, 166.) 

What a need there is in executive chairs, in legislative halls, and on 
the benches of justice for such able and upright public men ! 

Another personal acquaintance of Dudley was Captain Edward John- 
son, who came with him in the "great emigration" in 1630, and repre- 
sented the town of Woburn in the General Court every year until 1671, 
except 1643. They were thus officially connected in the government 
nine years, and were probably acquainted as long as Mr. Dudley lived 
in the colony. 

Johnson says of him, that in 1632 " The ancient Thomas Dudley, 
Esq., was deputy governor, a man of a sound judgment in matters of 
religion and well read, bestowing much labor that way, of whom as fol- 
loweth : The honored, aged, stable, and sincere servant of Christ, 
zealous for his truth, Thomas Dudley, Esq., four times governor of the 
English nation in the Massachusetts, and first major-general of the 
military forces." He says again, " In 1647 the honored John Win- 

1 See Appendix B. 



434 THOMAS DUDLEY 

friend of Harvard, but also an ally of royalty and Andros, 
may have without reason diminished public respect for the 
family, and left the robust character of his father unguarded 
and exposed, in the tumult of politics, to deductions, and in- 
ferences from that portion of Winthrop's Journal which 
covers the brief period when he and Winthrop were not good 
friends. 

If we compare the men who were most prominent in the 
founding of Massachusetts, we shall find that Governor 
Endicott was a more reckless man than Governor Dudley, 
as shown by his contempt of Court in 1635, 1 and by his cut- 
ting the red cross out of the king's colors ; more vindictive, 
as was evident in his treatment of Baptists, 2 and later of the 
Quaker martyrs. 3 

Governor Winthrop was more morbid and superstitious, 
as appears in his own account of Mary Dyer and Ann 
Hutchinson, and in other writings by him, 4 and was more 

throp, Esq., was chosen governor, fend the like honored Thomas Dud- 
ley, Esq., deputy governor." (Wonder-Working Providence, 68, 207.) 

The General Court, in 1646, speaks of "our much-honored and right 
trusty and well-beloved Thomas Dudley, Esq." 

William Hubbard, who came to Massachusetts in 1635 and graduated 
at Harvard in 1642 in its first class, knew Governor Dudley and the 
public estimate of him, and he says in his New England History that 
when he died he left not his equal behind in the magistracy. (Mass. 
Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d series, vi. chap. lxii. 552.) 

Cotton Mather was born ten years after the decease of Dudley, and 
must have known many persons who knew him, including his own dis- 
tinguished father, Increase Mather. He informs us that " He was a 
man of great spirit as well as of a great understanding ; suitable to the 
family he was by his father descended from ; and envy itself cannot 
deny him a place amongst the first three that ever were called to in- 
termeddle in the affairs of the Massachusetts. He was endowed with 
many excellent abilities that qualified him thereunto." (Proc. Mass. 
Hist. Soc. 1870, 220.) 

1 Mass. Col. Rec, i. 157. 

2 Backus's Hist. Bapt, i. 181. 

3 Dudley had deceased three years before any Friends arrived in 
Boston. 

4 E. Eggleston's Beginnings of a Nation, 340, 341. 



CONCLUSION 435 

contracted in his political ideas, as was seen in his opposition 
to Governors Vane and Dudley in the matter of spreading 
the king's colors at Castle Island. 1 

He was not so frank and open as Dudley, as appeared in 
his method of removing his house from Cambridge, which 
was disapproved of by the Court ; more intriguing, as mani- 
fested in letting the officers go to Salem to arrest Roger 
Williams, when he had reason to believe that under his own 
advice he had already gone to Rhode Island, the particular 
movement by Williams which the Court feared, and wished 
to prevent. 

He did no more constructive work in the committees in 
framing the laws than Dudley. He and Dudley were each 
twice president of the confederacy, and no other person was 
president when either of them was a commissioner. Dudley 
was commissioner in 1643, I 647, and 1649. They both 
assisted in forming the Articles of Confederation, and for 
nine or ten of the last years of their lives were brothers 
beloved, of one political faith, and if they had personal dif- 
ferences they kept them to themselves. There was one 
striking contrast between them : Dudley, as we have noticed, 
took no care for posthumous fame; and what is more strange, 
with one exception, concealed his ancestry, which was emi- 
nent. If he had said more about himself he probably would 
have left less opportunity for misrepresentation of his char- 
acter. Winthrop left a diary, was the first governor and 
founder, and in recent years his statue is erected in Boston, 
at Mount Auburn, and in the Capitol at Washington, justly 
proclaiming him as the founder of Massachusetts ; but he 
was not alone in that immortal service, and should share 
the honor with his worthy colleague. 2 

1 Winthrop, i. *i89; ii. *42i. 

2 The omission of Dudley from that companionship of illustrious 
names which encircles the hall of representatives in the capitol of Mas- 
sachusetts is a matter for anxious thought. Dudley was in any event, 
however otherwise bounded or described, hardly second in weight and 
influence in the beginning of the colony. His career furnishes no 



436 THOMAS DUDLEY 

We trust that the commonwealth which Dudley helped 
to found will at last in sincere gratitude, after these tardy 
years, place his statue, a thing he never sought, in her great 
public squares, that the world may know that she delights 
without respect of persons to honor her illustrious men, and 
to extend the influence of noble character and honorable 
public service to the coming generations of her citizens. 

Dudley had little personal ambition for fame. His politics 
seemed to be guided by his idea of the higher law. He was 
considering conscience more and fostering reputation less. 
He was not casting about to discover what he was to get out 
of political action or what niche in earthly renown would 
reward him. 

We are convinced that for sterling worth and ability, for 
downright manliness, for that true grandeur of righteous 
character and Christian virtue which we admire in Wash- 
ington and in Lincoln, Thomas Dudley was the peer of any 
man among the founders of New England. 

excuse for neglect, like the too bold words of Byron, which excluded his 
ashes from Westminster Abbey, as if in realization of his prophetic 
lines : — 

" If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 

Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 

My name from out the temple where the dead 

Are honor'd by the nations — let it be — 

And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 

And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — 

' Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' " 

(Childe Harold, Canto iv. 80-86.) 

This oversight of Dudley is unfortunately only one among many evi- 
dences that true grandeur of character may be rejected by the people 
who sometimes subsequently erect monuments to its undying worth. La 
Fontaine wisely said, " If you really wish to prevent the commission of 
injustice, you must first remove error and prejudice." 



APPENDIX A 

GOVERNOR THOMAS DUDLEY'S LETTER 1 

To the Right Honorable, my very good Lady, the Lady 

Bridget, Countess of Lincoln : 

Madam, — Your letters (which are not common nor cheap), fol- 
lowing me hither into New England, and bringing with them 
renewed testimonies of the accustomed favors you honored me 
with in the Old, have drawn from me this narrative retribution, 
which (in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great 
note amongst us) was the thankfullest present I had to send over 
the seas. Therefore I humbly entreat your Honor this be 
accepted as payment from him who neither hath nor is any more 
than Your Honor's old thankful servant, 

T. D. 

Boston, in New-England, March 12th, 1630. 

For the satisfaction of your honor and some friends, and for 
the use of such as shall hereafter intend to increase our Planta- 
tion in New England, I have, in the throng of domestic, and not 
altogether free from public business, thought fit to commit to 
memory our present condition, and what hath befallen us since 
our arrival here ; which I will do shortly, after my usual manner, 

1 Samuel E. Drake says, " I should not be pardoned by any intelligent reader, 
I think, were I not to allow a man of Governor Dudley's importance to tell 
things as he saw and knew them; being one of those who wrote 'with his 
hands to the plow,' and tells us things nowhere else to be found. He wrote 
within the year of settlement. . . . With this paragraph ends the invaluable 
Letter of Dudley. No document in the annals of Boston will compare in im- 
portance with it, and no one can successfully study this period of its history 
without it." (Drake's Hist, and Antiq. of Boston, 91, 122, 123, notes.) Alex- 
ander Young pronounces it "the most interesting as well as authentic docu- 
ment in our early annals." (Young's Chron., 340, note.) James Savage says, 
" The high authority of Governor Dudley's Narrative (Mass. Hist. Coll., 
1st series, viii. 37) makes it vanish." (Winthrop, i. *43-) One of the best 
annotated copies of this letter is in Young's Chronicles, 303-341. 



438 APPENDIX A 

and must do rudely, having yet no table nor other room to write 
in than by the fireside upon my knee, in this sharp winter; to 
which my family must have leave to resort, though they break 
good manners, and make me many times forget what I would say, 
and say what I would not. 

. . . sachim in New-England, whom I saw the last summer. 
Upon the river of Naponset, near to the Mattachusetts fields, 
dwelleth Chickatalbott, who hath between fifty and sixty subjects. 
This man least favoreth the English of any sagamore (for so are 
the kings with us called, as they are sachims southwards) we are 
acquainted with, by reason of the old quarrel between him and 
those of Plymouth, wherein he lost seven of his best men ; yet 
he lodged one night the last winter at my house in friendly man- 
ner. About seventy or eighty miles westward from these are 
seated the Nipnett men, whose sagamore we know not, but we 
hear their numbers exceed any but the Pequods and the Narra- 
gansets, and they are the only people we yet hear of in the inland 
country. Upon the river of Mistick is seated sagamore John, and 
upon the river of Saugus sagamore James, his brother, both so 
named by the English. The elder brother, John, is a handsome 
young man, [one line missing] conversant with us, affecting Eng- 
lish apparel and houses, and speaking well of our God. His 
brother James is of a far worse disposition, yet repaireth often to 
us. Both these brothers command not above thirty or forty men, 
for aught I can learn. Near to Salem dwelleth two or three 
families, subject to the sagamore of Agawam, whose name he 
told me, but I have forgotten it. This sagamore hath but few 
subjects, and them and himself tributary to sagamore James, 
having been before the last year (in James's minority) tributary 
to Chickatalbott. Upon the river Merrimack is seated sagamore 
Piscataqua, having under his command four or five hundred men, 
being esteemed by his countrymen a false fellow, and by us a 
witch. For any more northerly, I know not, but leave it to after 
Relations. 

Having thus briefly and disorderly, especially in my description 
of the bays and rivers, set down what is come to hand touching 
the [one line missing]. 

Now concerning the English that are planted here, I find that 
about the year 1620 certain English set out from Leyden, in 
Holland, intending their course for Hudson's river, the mouth 



APPENDIX A 439 

whereof lieth south of the river of the Pequods, but ariseth, as I am 
informed, northwards in about 43 , and so a good part of it within 
the compass of our patent. These, being much weather-beaten 
and wearied with seeking the river, after a most tedious voyage 
arrived at length in a small bay lying northeast from Cape Cod ; 
where landing about the month of December, by the favor of a 
calm winter, such as was never seen here since, began to build 
their dwellings in that place which now is called New Plymouth ; 
where, after much sickness, famine, poverty, and great mortality 
(through all which God by an unwonted providence carried them), 
they are now grown up to a people healthful, wealthy, politic, and 
religious ; such things doth the Lord for those that wait for his 
mercies. These of Plymouth came with patents from King James, 
and have since obtained others from our sovereign, King Charles, 
having a governor and council of their own. 

There was about the same time one Mr. Weston, an English 
merchant, who sent divers men to plant and trade, who sat down 
by the river of Wesaguscus. But these coming not for so good 
ends as those of Plymouth, sped not so well ; for the most of them 
dying and languishing away, they who survived were rescued by 
those of Plymouth out of the hands of Chickatalbott and his 
Indians, who oppressed these weak English and intended to have 
destroyed them, and the Plymotheans also, as is set down in a 
tract written by Mr. Winslow, of Plymouth. 

Also, since, one Captain Wollaston, with some thirty with him, 
came near to the same place, and built on a hill which he named 
Mount Wollaston. But being not supplied with renewed provi- 
sions, they vanished away, as the former did. 

Also divers merchants of Bristow, and some other places, have 
yearly for these eight years, or thereabouts, sent ships hither at 
the fishing times to trade for beaver; where their factors dis- 
honestly, for their gains, have furnished the Indians with guns, 
swords, powder and shot. 

Touching the Plantation which we here have begun, it fell out 
thus. About the year 1627, some friends being together in Lin- 
colnshire, fell into discourse about New-England, and the plant- 
ing of the Gospel there ; and after some deliberation we imparted 
our reasons, by letters and messages, to some in London and the 
west country ; where it was likewise deliberately thought upon, 
and at length with often negotiation so ripened, that in the year 



440 APPENDIX A 

1628 we procured a patent from his Majesty for our planting 
between the Massachusetts Bay and Charles river on the south, 
and the river of Merrimack on the north, and three miles on 
either side of those rivers and bay ; as also for the government 
of those who did or should inhabit within that compass. And 
the same year we sent Mr. John Endicott, and some with him, 
to begin a Plantation, and to strengthen such as he should find 
there, which we sent thither from Dorchester and some places 
adjoining. From whom the same year receiving hopeful news, 
the next year, 1629, we sent divers ships over, with about three 
hundred people, and some cows, goats, and horses, many of 
which arrived safely. 

These, by their too large commendations of the country and 
the commodities thereof, invited us so strongly to go on, that Mr. 
Winthrop, of Suffolk (who was well known in his own country, 
and well approved here for his piety, liberality, wisdom, and 
gravity), coming in to us, we came to such resolution, that in 
April, 1630, we set sail from Old England with four good ships. 
And in May following eight more followed ; two having gone 
before in February and March, and two more following in June 
and August, besides another set out by a private merchant. 
These seventeen ships arrived all safe in New-England, for the 
increase of the Plantation here this year, 1630, but made a long, 
a troublesome, and costly voyage, being all wind-bound long in 
England, and hindered with contrary winds after they set sail, 
and so scattered with mists and tempests that few of them arrived 
together. Our four ships which set out in April arrived here in 
June and July, where we found the Colony in a sad and unex- 
pected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter 
before, and many of those alive weak and sick ; all the corn and 
bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, 
insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants 
we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals 
to sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them, 
by reason that the provisions shipped for them were taken out of 
the ship they were put in, and they who were trusted to ship them 
in another failed us and left them behind, whereupon necessity 
enforced us, to our extreme loss, to give them all liberty, who 
had cost us about ,£16 or £20 a person, furnishing and sending 
over. 



APPENDIX A 441 

But bearing these things as we might, we began to consult of 
the place of our sitting down ; for Salem, where we landed, 
pleased us not. And to that purpose, some were sent to the 
Bay, to search up the rivers for a convenient place ; who, upon 
their return, reported to have found a good place upon Mistick ; 
but some others of us, seconding these, to approve or dislike 
of their judgment, we found a place [that] liked us better, three 
leagues up Charles river; and thereupon unshipped our goods 
into other vessels, and with much cost and labor brought them in 
July to Charlestown. But there receiving advertisements, by 
some of the late arrived ships, from London and Amsterdam, of 
some French preparations against us (many of our people brought 
with us being sick of fevers and the scurvy, and we thereby 
unable to carry up our ordnance and baggage so far), we were 
forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter to plant dis- 
persedly, some at Charlestown, which standeth on the north side 
of the mouth of Charles river ; some on the south side thereof, 
which place we named Boston (as we intended to have done the 
place we first resolved on); some of us upon Mistick, which we 
named Medford ; some of us westwards on Charles river, four 
miles from Charlestown, which place we named Watertown ; 
others of us two miles from Boston, in a place we named Rox- 
bury; others upon the river of Saugus, between Salem and 
Charlestown ; and the western men four miles south from Bos- 
ton, at a place we named Dorchester. 

This dispersion troubled some of us ; but help it we could not, 
wanting ability to remove to any place fit to build a town upon, 
and the time too short to deliberate any longer, lest the winter 
should surprise us before we had builded our houses. The best 
counsel we could find out was to build a fort to retire to, in 
some convenient place, if any enemy pressed us thereunto, after 
we should have fortified ourselves against the injuries of wet and 
cold. So ceasing to consult further for that time, they who had 
health to labor fell to building, wherein many were interrupted 
with sickness, and many died weekly, yea, almost daily. Amongst 
whom were Mrs. Pynchon, Mrs. Coddington, Mrs. Phillips, and 
Mrs. Alcock, a sister of Mr. Hooker's. Insomuch that the ships 
being now upon their return, some for England, some for Ireland, 
there was, as I take it, not much less than a hundred (some think 
many more), partly out of dislike of our government, which 



442 APPENDIX A 

restrained and punished their excesses, and partly through fear 
of famine, not seeing other means than by their labor to feed 
themselves, which returned back again ; and glad were we so to 
be rid of them. Others also, afterwards hearing of men of their 
own disposition, which were planted at Piscataqua, went from 
us to them, whereby though our numbers were lessened, yet we 
accounted ourselves nothing weakened by their removal. Before 
the departure of the ships, we contracted with Mr. Peirce, master 
of the Lion, of Bristow, to return to us with all speed with fresh 
supplies of victuals, and gave him directions accordingly. With 
this ship returned Mr. Revell, one of the five undertakers here 
for the joint stock of the company, and Mr. Vassall, one of the 
Assistants, and his family, and also Mr. Bright, a minister sent 
hither the year before. 

The ships being gone, victuals wasting, and mortality increas- 
ing, we held divers fasts in our several congregations. But the 
Lord would not yet be deprecated ; for about the beginning of 
September died Mr. Gager, a right godly man, a skilful chirur- 
geon, and one of the deacons of our congregation ; and Mr. Hig- 
ginson, one of the ministers of Salem, a zealous and a profitable 
preacher — this of a consumption, that of a fever ; and on the 
30th of September died Mr. Johnson, another of the five under- 
takers (the Lady Arbella, his wife, being dead a month before). 
This gentleman was a prime man amongst us, having the best 
estate of any, zealous for religion, and the greatest furtherer of 
this Plantation. He made a most godly end, dying willingly, 
professing his life better spent in promoting this Plantation than 
it could have been any other way. He left to us a loss greater 
than the most conceived. Within a month after, died Mr. 
Rossiter, another of our Assistants, a godly man, and of a good 
estate, which still weakened us more. So that now there were 
left of the five undertakers but the governor, Sir Richard Salton- 
stall, and myself, and seven other of the Assistants. And of the 
people who came over with us, from the time of their setting sail 
from England in April, 1630, until December following, there died 
by estimation about two hundred at the least ; so low hath the 
Lord brought us ! 

Well, yet they who survived were not discouraged, but bear- 
ing God's corrections with humility and trusting in his mercies, 
and considering how, after a lower ebb, he had raised up our 



APPENDIX A 443 

neighbours at Plymouth, we began again in December to consult 
about a fit place to build a town upon, leaving all thoughts of a 
fort, because upon any invasion we were necessarily to lose our 
houses, when we should retire thereinto. So after divers meet- 
ings at Boston, Roxbury, and Watertown, on the 28th of Decem- 
ber we grew to this resolution, to bind all the Assistants (Mr. 
Endicott and Mr. Sharpe excepted, which last purposeth to return 
by the next ship into England) to build houses at a place a mile 
east from Watertown, near Charles river, the next spring, and 
to winter there the next year ; that so by our examples, and by 
removing the ordnance and munition thither, all who were able 
might be drawn thither, and such as shall come to us hereafter, 
to their advantage be compelled so to do ; and so, if God would, 
a fortified town might there grow up, the place fitting reasonably 
well thereto. 

I should have mentioned how both the English and Indian 
corn being at ten shillings a strike, and beaver being valued at 
six shillings a pound, we made laws to restrain the selling of 
corn to the Indians, and to leave the price of beaver at liberty, 
which was presently sold for ten and twenty shillings a pound. 
I should also have remembered, how the half of our cows and 
almost all our mares and goats, sent us out of England, died at 
sea in their passage hither, and that those intended to be sent 
us out of Ireland were not sent at all ; all which, together with 
the loss of our six months' building, occasioned by our intended 
removal to a town to be fortified, weakened our estates, especially 
the estates of the undertakers, who were 3 or ^4000 engaged in 
the joint stock, which was now not above so many hundreds. 
Yet many of us labored to bear it as comfortably as we could, 
remembering the end of our coming hither, and knowing the 
power of God, who can support and raise us again, and useth to 
bring his servants low that the meek may be made glorious by 
deliverance. 

In the end of this December departed from us the ship Hand- 
maid, of London, by which we sent away one Thomas Morton, a 
proud, insolent man, who has lived here, divers years, and had 
been an .attorney in the west countries while he lived in England. 
Multitude of complaints were received against him for injuries 
done by him both to the English and Indians ; and amongst 
others, for shooting hailshot at a troop of Indians for not bring- 



444 APPENDIX A 

ing a canoe unto him to cross a river withal, whereby he hurt 
one, and shot through the garments of another. For the satis- 
faction of the Indians wherein, and that it might appear to them 
and to the English that we meant to do justice impartially, we 
caused his hands to be bound behind him, and set his feet in the 
bilboes, and burned his house to the ground, all in the sight of 
the Indians, and so kept him prisoner till we sent him for Eng- 
land ; whither we sent him, for that my Lord Chief Justice there 
so required, that he might punish him capitally for fouler misde- 
meanours there perpetrated, as we were informed. 

I have no leisure to review and insert things forgotten, but 
out of due time and order must set them down as they come to 
memory. About the end of October this year, 1630, I joined 
with the governor and Mr. Mavereck in sending out our pin- 
nace to the Narragansetts, to trade for corn to supply our wants ; 
but after the pinnace had doubled Cape Cod, she put into the 
next harbour she found, and there meeting with Indians, who 
showed their willingness to truck, she made her voyage there, 
and brought us a hundred bushels of corn, at about four shillings 
a bushel, which helped us somewhat. From the coast where 
they traded, they saw a very large island, four leagues to the 
east, which the Indians commended as a fruitful place, full of 
good vines, and free from sharp frosts, having one only entrance 
into it, by a navigable river, inhabited by a few Indians, which 
for a trifle would leave the island, if the English would set them 
upon the main ; but the pinnace, having no direction for dis- 
covery, returned without sailing to it, which in two hours they 
might have done. Upon this coast they found store of vines full 
of grapes dead ripe, the season being past ; whither we purpose 
to send the next year sooner, to make some small quantity of 
wine, if God enable us ; the vines growing thin with us, and we 
not having yet any leisure to plant vineyards. 

But now having some leisure to discourse of the motives for 
other men's coming to this place, or their abstaining from it, after 
my brief manner I say this : that if any come hither to plant for 
worldly ends, that can live well at home, he commits an error, of 
which he will soon repent him ; but if for spiritual, and, that no 
particular obstacle hinder his removal, he may find here what 
may well content him, viz., materials to build, fuel to burn, ground 
to plant, seas and rivers to fish in, a pure air to breathe in, good 



APPENDIX A 



445 



water to drink, till wine or beer can be made ; which, together 
with the cows, hogs, and goats brought hither already, may suf- 
fice for food ; for as for fowl and venison, they are dainties here 
as well as in England. For clothes and bedding, they must bring 
them with them, till time and industry produce them here. In 
a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be 
pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. And I do 
the more willingly use this open and plain dealing, lest other men 
should fall short of their expectations when they come hither, as 
we to our great prejudice did, by means of letters sent us from 
hence into England, wherein honest men, out of a desire to draw 
over others to them, wrote somewhat hyperbolically of many 
things here. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come 
over to help us in the good work we are about, I think they can- 
not dispose of themselves nor of their estates more to God's 
glory and the furtherance of their own reckoning. But they 
must not be of the poorer sort yet, for divers years ; for we have 
found by experience that they have hindered, not furthered the 
work. And for profane and debauched persons, their oversight 
in coming hither is wondered at, where they shall find nothing to 
content them. If there be any endued with grace, and furnished 
with means to feed themselves and theirs for eighteen months, 
and to build and plant, let them come over into our Macedonia 
and help us, and not spend themselves and their estates in a less 
profitable employment. For others, I conceive they are not yet 
fitted for this business. 

Touching the discouragement which the sickness and mortality 
which every first year hath seized upon us and those of Plym- 
outh, as appeareth before, may give to such who have cast any 
thoughts this way (of which mortality it may be said of us almost 
as of the Egyptians, that there is not a house where there is not 
one dead, and in some houses many), the natural causes seem 
to be in the want of warm lodging and good diet, to which 
Englishmen are habituated at home, and in the sudden increase 
of heat which they endure that are landed here in summer, the 
salt meats at sea having prepared their bodies thereto ; for those 
only these two last years died of fevers who landed in June and 
July ; as those of Plymouth, who landed in winter, died of the 
scurvy ; as did our poorer sort, whose houses and bedding kept 
them not sufficiently warm, nor their diet sufficiently in heart. 



446 APPENDIX A 

Other causes God may have, as our faithful minister, Mr. Wilson, 
lately handling that point, showed unto us, which I forbear to 
mention, leaving this matter to the further dispute of physicians 
and divines. 

Wherefore to return, upon the 3d of January died the daughter 
of Mr. Sharpe, a godly virgin, making a comfortable end, after a 
long sickness. The Plantation here received not the like loss of 
any woman since we came hither, and therefore she well deserves 
to be remembered in this place. 

And to add to our sorrows, upon the 5th day came letters to 
us from Plymouth, advertising us of this sad accident following : 
About a fortnight before, there went from us in a shallop to 
Plymouth six men and a girl, who, in an hour or two before 
night, on the same day they went forth, came near to the mouth 
of Plymouth bay ; but the wind, then coming strongly from the 
shore, kept them from entering, and drove them to sea-wards ; 
and they having no better means to help themselves, let down 
their killock, that so they might drive the more slowly, and be 
nearer land when the storm should cease. But the stone slip- 
ping out of the killock, and thereby they driving faster than they 
thought all the night, in the morning, when they looked out, they 
found themselves out of sight of land, which so astonished them 
(the frost being extreme, and their hands so benumbed with cold 
that they could not handle their oars, neither had any compass 
to steer by), that they gave themselves for lost, and lay down to 
die quietly. Only one man, who had more natural heat and cour- 
age remaining than the rest, continued so long looking for land 
that, the morning waxing clearer, he discovered land, and with 
difficulty hoisted the sail ; and so the wind a little turning, two 
days after they were driven from Plymouth bay, they arrived at 
a shore unknown unto them. The stronger helped the weaker 
out of the boat, and taking their sail on shore, made a shelter 
thereof, and made a fire. But the frost had so pierced their 
bodies, that one of them died about three days after their land- 
ing, and most of the others grew worse, both in body and cour- 
age, no hope of relief being within their view. Well, yet the Lord 
pitying them, and two of them, who only could use their legs, 
going abroad rather to seek than to hope to find help, they met 
first with two Indian women, who sent unto them an Indian man, 
who informed them that Plymouth was within fifty miles, and 



APPENDIX A 447 

offered together to procure relief for them, which they gladly 
accepting, he performed, and brought them three men from Plym- 
outh (the governor and Council of Plymouth liberally reward- 
ing the Indian, and took care for the safety of. our people), who 
brought them all alive in their boat thither, save one man, who, 
with a guide, chose rather to go over land ; but quickly fell lame 
by the way, and getting harbour at a trucking-house the Plymo- 
theans had in those parts, there he yet abides. At the others' 
landing at Plymouth, one of them died as he was taken out of 
the boat. Another, and he the worst in the company, rotted 
from the feet upwards, where the frost had gotten most hold, 
and so died within a few days. The other three, after God had 
blessed the chirurgeon's skill used towards them, returned safe 
to us. I set down this the more largely, partly because the first 
man that died was a godly man of our congregation, one Richard 
Garrad, who, at the time of his death, more feared he should dis- 
honor God than cared for his own life ; as also because divers 
boats have been in manifest peril this year, yet the Lord pre- 
served them all, this one excepted. 

Amongst those who died about the end of this January, there 
was a girl of eleven years old, the daughter of one John Ruggles 
of whose family and kindred died so many, that for some reason 
it was matter of observation amongst us ; who, in the time of her 
sickness, expressed to the minister, and to those about her, so 
much faith and assurance of salvation as is rarely found in any 
of that age ; which I thought not unworthy here to commit to 
memory. And if any tax me for wasting paper with recording 
these small matters, such may consider that little mothers bring 
forth little children ; small commonwealths, matters of small mo- 
ment, the reading whereof yet is not to be despised by the judi- 
cious, because small things in the beginning of natural or politic 
bodies are as remarkable as greater in bodies full grown. 

Upon the 5th of February arrived here Mr. Peirce, with the 
ship Lion, of Bristow, with supplies of victuals from England, 
who had set forth from Bristow the 1st of December before. He 
had a stormy passage hither, and lost one of his sailors not far 
from our shore, who in a tempest having helped to take in the 
spritsail, lost his hold as he was coming down, and fell into the 
sea, where, after long swimming, he was drowned, to the great 
dolor of those in the ship, who beheld so lamentable a spectacle 



448 APPENDIX A 

without being able to minister help to him, the sea was so high, 
and the ship drove so fast before the wind, though her sails were 
taken down. By this ship we understood of the fight of three of 
our ships and two English men-of-war coming out of the Straits, 
with fourteen Dunkirkers, upon the coast of England, as they re- 
turned from us in the end of the last summer ; who, through 
God's goodness, with the loss of some thirteen or fourteen men 
out of our three ships, and I know not how many out of the 
two men-of-war, got at length clear of them ; the Charles, one of 
our three, a stout ship of three hundred tons, being so torn, that 
she had not much of her left whole above water. By this ship 
we also understood the death of many of those who went from 
us the last year to Old England, as likewise of the mortality 
there ; whereby we see there are graves in other places as well 
as with us. 

Also, to increase the heap of our sorrows, we received adver- 
tisement by letters from our friends in England, and by the 
reports of those who came hither in this ship to abide with 
us (who were about twenty-six), that they who went discon- 
tentedly from us the last year, out of their evil affections towards 
us, have raised many false and scandalous reports against us, 
affirming us to be Brownists in religion, and ill affected to our 
state at home, and that these vile reports have won credit with 
some who formerly wished us well. But we do desire, and can- 
not but hope, that wise and impartial men will at length consider 
that such malecontents have ever pursued this manner of casting 
dirt, to make others seem as foul as themselves, and that our 
godly friends, to whom we have been known, will not easily 
believe that we are so soon turned from the profession we so 
long have made in our native country. And for our further clear- 
ing, I truly affirm, that I know no one person, who came over 
with us the last year, to be altered in judgment and affection, 
either in ecclesiastical or civil respects, since our coming hither. 
But we do continue to pray daily for our sovereign lord the King, 
the Queen, the Prince, the royal blood, the council and whole 
state, as duty binds us to do, and reason persuades others to 
believe. For how ungodly and unthankful should we be, if we 
should not thus do, who came hither by virtue of his Majesty's 
letters patent, and under his gracious protection, under which 
shelter we hope to live safely, and from whose kingdom and sub- 



APPENDIX A 449 

jects we now have received and hereafter expect relief. Let our 
friends therefore give no credit to such malicious aspersions, but 
be more ready to answer for us than we hear they have been. 
We are not like those which have dispensations to lie ; but as we 
were free enough in Old England to turn our insides outwards, 
sometimes to our disadvantage, very unlike is it that now, being 
procul a fulmine, we should be so unlike ourselves. Let there- 
fore this be sufficient for us to say, and others to hear in this 
matter. 

Amongst others who died about this time was Mr. Robert 
Welden, whom, in the time of his sickness, we had chosen to be 
captain of a hundred foot ; but before he took possession of his 
place, he died, the 16th of this February, and was buried as a 
soldier, with three volleys of shot. 

Upon the 22d of February we held a general day of Thanks- 
giving throughout the whole colony for the safe arrival of the 
ship which came last with our provisions. 

About this time we apprehended one Robert Wright, who had 
been sometimes a linen draper in Newgate market, and after that 
a brewer on the Bank side and on Thames street. This man, 
we lately understood, had made an escape in London from those 
who came to his house to apprehend him for clipping the King's 
coin [one or two words missing] had stolen after us. Upon his 
examination he confessed the fact, and his escape, but affirmed 
he had the King's pardon for it under the broad seal ; which he 
yet not being able to prove, and one to whom he was known 
charging him with untruth in some of his answers, we therefore 
committed him to prison, to be sent by the next ship into Eng- 
land. 

Likewise we were lately informed that one Mr. Gardiner, who 
arrived here a month before us, and who had passed here for a 
knight, by the name of Sir Christopher Gardiner, all this while 
was no knight, but instead thereof had two wives now living in a 
house at London, one of which came about September last from 
Paris in France (where her husband had left her years before) to 
London, where she had heard her husband had married a second 
wife, and whom, by inquiring, she found out. And they both 
condoling each other's estate, wrote both their letters to the gov- 
ernor (by Mr. Peirce, who had conference with both women in 
the presence of Mr. Allerton, of Plymouth), his first wife desiring 



450 APPENDIX A 

his return and conversion, his second his destruction for his foul 
abuse, and for robbing her of her estate, of a part whereof she 
sent an inventory hither, comprising therein many rich jewels, 
much plate, and costly linen. This man had in his family (and 
yet hath) a gentlewoman, whom he called his kinswoman, and 
whom one of his wives in her letter names Mary Grove, affirming 
her to be a known harlot, whose sending back into Old England 
she also desired, together with her husband. Shortly after this 
intelligence, we sent to the house of the said Gardiner (which was 
seven miles from us), to apprehend him and his woman, with a 
purpose to send them both to London to his wives there. But 
the man, who, having heard some rumor from some who came in 
the ship, that letters were come to the governor, requiring justice 
against him, was readily prepared for flight, so soon as he should 
see any crossing the river, or likely to apprehend him ; which he 
accordingly performed. For he dwelling alone, easily discerned 
such who were sent to take him, half a mile before they ap- 
proached his house, and with his piece on his neck, went his way, 
as most men think, northwards, hoping to find some English there 
like to himself. But likely enough it is, which way soever he 
went, he will lose himself in the woods, and be stopped with some 
rivers in his passing, notwithstanding his compass in his pocket, 
and so with hunger and cold will perish before he find the place 
he seeks. His woman was brought unto us, and confessed her 
name, and that her mother dwells eight miles from Boirdly, in 
Salopshire, and that Gardiner's father dwells in or near Glouces- 
ter, and was (as she said) brother to Stephen Gardiner, bishop 
of Winchester, and did disinherit his son for his twenty-six years' 
absence in his travels in France, Italy, Germany, and Turkey; 
that he had (as he told her) married a wife in his travels, from 
whom he was divorced, and the woman long since dead ; that 
both herself and Gardiner were Catholics till of late, but were 
now Protestants ; that she takes him to be a knight, but never 
heard when he was knighted. The woman was impenitent and 
close, confessing no more than was wrested from her by her own 
contradictions. So we have taken order to send her to the two 
wives in Old England, to search her further. 

Upon the 8th of March, from after it was fair daylight until 
about eight of the clock in the forenoon, there flew over all the 
towns in our plantations so many flocks of doves, each flock con- 



APPENDIX A 451 

taining many thousands, and some so many that they obscured the 
light, that it passeth credit, if but the truth should be written ; 
and the thing was the more strange, because I scarce remember 
to have seen ten doves since I came into the country. They 
were all turtles, as appeared by divers of them we killed flying, 
somewhat bigger than those of Europe, and they flew from the 
northeast to the southwest ; but what it portends, I know not. 

The ship now waits but for wind, which when it blows, there 
are ready to go aboard therein for England, Sir Richard Salton- 
stall, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Coddington, and many others ; the most 
whereof purpose to return to us again, if God will. In the mean 
time, we are left a people poor and contemptible, yet such as 
trust in God, and are contented with our condition, being well 
assured that he will not fail us nor forsake us. 

I had almost forgotten to add this, that the wheat we received 
by this last ship stands us in thirteen or fourteen shillings a 
strike, and the pease about eleven shillings a strike, besides the 
adventure, which is worth three or four shillings a strike, which 
is a higher price than I ever tasted bread of before. 

Thus, Madam, I have, as I can, told your Honor all our mat- 
ters, knowing your wisdom can make good use thereof. If I live 
not to perform the like office of my duty hereafter, likely it is 
some other will do it better. 

Before the departure of the ship (which yet was wind-bound), 
there came unto us Sagamore John and one of his subjects, re- 
quiring satisfaction for the burning of two wigwams by some of 
the English, which wigwams were not inhabited, but stood in a 
place convenient for their shelter, when upon occasion they 
should travel that way. By examination we found that some 
English fowlers, having retired into that which belonged to the 
subject, and leaving a fire therein carelessly, which they had 
kindled to warm them, were the cause of burning thereof. For 
that which was the sagamore's, we could find no certain proof 
how it was fired ; yet, lest he should think us not sedulous enough 
to find it out, and so should depart discontentedly from us, we 
gave both him and his subject satisfaction for them both. 

The like accident of fire also befell Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Col- 
borne upon the 17th of this March, both whose houses (which 
were as good and as well furnished as the most in the Plantation) 
were in two hours' space burned to the ground, together with 



452 APPENDIX A 

much of their household stuff, apparel, and other things ; as also 
some goods of others who sojourned with them in their houses, 
God so pleasing to exercise us with corrections of this kind, as 
he hath done with others. For the prevention whereof in our 
new town, intended this summer to be builded, we have ordered 
that no man there shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover 
his house with thatch, which was readily assented unto, for that 
divers other houses have been burned since our arrival (the fire 
always beginning in the wooden chimneys), and some English 
wigwams, which have taken fire in the roofs covered with thatch 
or boughs. 

And that this ship might return into Old England with heavy 
news, upon the 18th day of March came one from Salem, and 
told us that upon the 15th thereof there died Mrs. Skelton, the 
wife of the other minister there ; who, about eighteen or twenty 
days before, handling cold things in a sharp morning, put herself 
into a most violent fit of the wind colic and vomiting, which con- 
tinuing, she at length fell into a fever, and so died, as before. 
She was a godly and a helpful woman, and indeed the main pillar 
of her family, having left behind her a husband and four children, 
weak and helpless, who can scarce tell how to live without her. 
She lived desired, and died lamented, and well deserves to be 
honorably remembered. 

Upon the 25th of this March, one of Watertown having lost a 
calf, and about ten of the clock at night hearing the howling of 
some wolves not far off, raised many of his neighbours out of 
their beds, that, by discharging their muskets near about the 
place where he heard the wolves, he might so put the wolves to 
flight, and save his calf. The wind serving fit to carry the report 
of the muskets to Roxbury, three miles off, at such a time, the 
inhabitants there took an alarm, beat up their drum, armed them- 
selves, and sent in post to us to Boston, to raise us also. So in 
the morning, the calf being found safe, the wolves affrighted, and 
our danger past, we went merrily to breakfast. 

I thought to have ended before ; but the stay of the ship, and 
my desire to inform your Honor of all I can, hath caused this 
addition ; and every one having warned to prepare for the ship's 
departure to-morrow, I am now, this 28th of March, 1631, sealing 
my letters. 



APPENDIX B 453 

APPENDIX B 

GOVERNOR JOSEPH DUDLEY 

It is incumbent upon us in writing the Life of Governor Thomas 
Dudley, to make mention of his very able and distinguished son, 
Joseph Dudley, also in due time both president and governor of 
Massachusetts, receiving at different times many other positions 
of trust and responsibility from the crown and colony. This 
concerns us more because he was conspicuous in a colonial revo- 
lution involving the religion and politics of England and New 
England, in which the conflict was so deep and the public mind 
so disturbed that intervening generations have preserved and 
cherished considerable of the partisan vigor and championship 
of the various coteries. 

He was the son of Thomas Dudley by his second wife. He 
was born in Roxbury, September 23, 1647, and as his father died 
in 1653, at seventy-seven years of age, it is evident that he had 
very little to do with the education of his son, who survived his 
father, living at the old homestead in Roxbury until April 2, 
1720. 

He graduated at Harvard in 1665, and studied theology. 
Hutchinson says that, " If various dignities had been known in 
the New England churches, possibly he would have lived and 
died a clergyman ; but without this, nothing could be more dis- 
sonant from his genius. He soon turned his thoughts to civil 
affairs ; was first a deputy or representative of the town of Rox- 
bury ; then an assistant ; then agent for the colony in England, 
where he laid a foundation for a commission, soon after appoint- 
ing him president of the council, first for Massachusetts Bay 
only, but, under Andros, for all New England." 1 He was, until 
he went to England, admired and sought by everybody. He was 
influential because of his father and also because of his own great 
ability and culture. When he was thirty-four years old, in 1681, 
he had then been four years commissioner of the United Col- 
onies. He was in the battle of the Narragansetts in 1675, and 
gave an account of it which still exists. 

When he went to England in 1682, as the agent of the colony, 
with an associate to protect and save the old charter that Win- 
1 Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., ii. 213. 



454 



APPENDIX B 



throp and his father had brought over in the Arbella in 1630, he 
seemed to carry with him the hopes and confidence of his fellow- 
citizens without distinctions of party. It was at once evident 
that the mission was useless ; that the restoration of Charles II., 
the destruction of the Commonwealth, and of the powerful Puri- 
tan party which had cherished the government of Massachusetts 
and its religion, had each and all contributed to this result. The 
throne of the Stuarts and the Church of England were supreme, 
with a fixed purpose that Massachusetts should conform, and no 
longer assume, under an ancient charter, the liberties, civil and 
religious, of an independent state. 

Dudley at once found himself in a revolution, which he did not 
create, which he could neither thwart nor direct. It was as irre- 
sistible as fate, a sequence of the growth and progress on both 
sides of the sea for half a century. The existing leaven in church 
and state must extend throughout the kingdom, creating conform- 
ity and homogeneous dominion everywhere. 

Edward Randolph was the evil genius who, as early as October 
12, 1676, aroused the attention of the home government to the 
independent tendencies of the New England colonies, and their 
antipathy to the Church of England. 1 

Thoughtful Americans were then forced at once to decide be- 
tween loyalty to the throne or rebellion. A similar question was 
presented to the Southern people in our Civil War : allegiance to 
the State or loyalty to the United States. The divine right of 
rebellion is conceded, but it was not yet expedient ; all things 
were in preparation, but it would require nearly one hundred 
years of growth to perfect everything for the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, — for Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown. Yet 
there were even then, in 1776, multitudes of the best people who 
took the same ground that Dudley had done earlier, continued to 
be tories and loyal to the crown. 

Dudley made friends in England, as he had the good fortune 
always to do. He had the quick perception and intelligence to 
discover at once the manifest tendency of events, and the wisdom 
not to contend in a battle already hopelessly lost. There is no 
charge that he did not accomplish in this agency all that could 
have been done, or that he betrayed the cause of the colony or 
gave aid and comfort to its enemies in his official position. Wil- 
1 Perry's Hist, of the Church in Mass., 1-24. 



APPENDIX B 455 

liam Stoughton wrote to him in London in August, 1683, "Great 
revolutions, I see, are hastening everywhere ; and since our poor 
corporation is like to outlive the charter of so famous a city as 
London, we must compose ourselves with the less regret to expect 
and entertain our own dissolution." Dudley was the means of dif- 
fusing a broader nationality, of creating through closer contact with 
Europe, especially with the mother country in her wars and strug- 
gles, a strong and well-sustained public confidence, which grew, 
and found New England prepared in 1776 to assert her nation- 
ality. If she had entered this conflict earlier and without the 
experiences of these years, the consequences to liberty on this 
continent might have been disastrous ; but liberty the world 
over has in recent years received its greatest impulse from 
America. 

He returned to Boston, October 23, 1683. He lost his election 
of assistant in 1684, but secured it again the next year. He was 
commissioned by James II., September 27, 1685, as president of 
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island ; he 
served nearly seven months, when Andros arrived and took his 
place, because he was not satisfactory to the crown nor accept- 
able to the people. A native who could be a servant of the king 
then was in about the same position to his neighbors as the 
Jew, nineteen centuries ago, who collected taxes for Rome from 
his countrymen. He was made a member of the council of 
Andros, and became president of it, and resisted the attacks 
of Andros upon the titles of the land in defense of the people, 
but sustained the hated government. 

When the government of Andros was overturned, in 1689, he 
and Dudley were both retained in prison twenty weeks in Boston, 
and then sent to England. This evidently rendered Dudley 
popular in London, and the next year but one he was created 
chief justice of New York (May 15, 1691), but was removed 
because he was not a resident, in 1692. * He returned to Eng- 

1 Hutchinson states that Dudley " was charged with dispensing summiim 
jus to [Jacob] Leisler [in New York in 1691], and incurring an aggravated 
guilt of blood beyond that of a common murderer. The other party, no doubt, 
would have charged the failure of justice upon him, if Leisler had been acquit- 
ted." (Hutchinson, ii. 214.) 

Leisler was a weak man, intoxicated with the love of power, and refused at 
the proper time to deliver up the government to the new governor, Henry 
Sloughter, on March 19, 1691. (Valentine's Hist. City of N. Y., 201 ; New 



456 APPENDIX B 

land in 1693, and remained there until 1702, when he came to 
New England bearing the commission of Queen Anne appoint- 
ing him governor of Massachusetts, an office which he now held 
continuously during the remainder of her life, for about thirteen 
years, or until he was seventy years old, with a stormy adminis- 
tration in the beginning, but with popularity and success in its 
closing years. 

York Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st series, iv. 96.) Valentine says the government 
called a special court of oyer and terminer, before which Leisler was brought 
about April 9, 1691, "on the charge of traitorously levying war against the 
sovereign" (Hist. City of N. Y., 204), and found guilty. "On the 14th of 
May the council requested the governor to carry the sentence into effect, and 
thus allay the ferment in the public mind, which was every day increasing." 
(lb., 205.) Two days after, the Assembly of New York declared their approba- 
tion of the execution, which took place on the 16th. (lb., 205.) There is an 
unsupported tradition that Sloughter was intoxicated when he signed the war- 
rant. (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st series, iv. 103, 104.) 

Bancroft says, " Joseph Dudley, of New England, now chief justice in 
New York, giving the opinion that Leisler had had no legal authority what- 
ever." (Bancroft's Hist., hi. 54.) Dudley was not chief justice of New York 
when Leisler was tried, April 9. He was appointed chief justice May 15, 
1691. Dudley was a member of the council, with six others, whose names are 
given in New York Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st series, iv. 96. The lords commission- 
ers of trade in England reported on the whole matter, March 11, 1692, "that 
they were humbly of opinion that Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milborne, deceased, 
were condemned and suffered according to law." (New York Hist. Coll., 1st 
series, iv. 104.) 

There had been a political revolution in New York, in which either party, if 
it succeeded, was determined upon the destruction of the other. Dudley was 
on the side of prerogative and the British authority, while his enemies in 
Massachusetts were on the other side, and have never ceased to manifest their 
displeasure with him. The court (of which we do not find that he was a mem- 
ber), the council, of which he was a member, the assembly, of which he was 
not a member, were all directly involved in promoting the execution, which in 
our period of prisons and of greater humanity would have been avoided. There 
can be no justice in heaping the great burden of discredit upon him who, in 
any event, must share it with many others if there is blame. 

In 1695 Parliament reversed the attainder, which was a concomitant then to 
1 conviction of treason, and restored the property to the children. This is 
quite different from voting an indemnity or assailing the original conviction of 
treason. (New York Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st series, iv. 104.) This was a simple 
act of humanity and justice. Our fathers, with the same tender compassion 
for innocent, defenseless children, ordained in the Constitution of the United 
States that there shall be no attainder of treason beyond the " life of the 
person attainted." (Sparks's Am. Biog., 2d series, iii. 1S1 ; Appleton's Biog. 
Diet. ; Moore's Mem. Amer. Governors, 390.) 



APPENDIX B 457 

Dudley had been, during his last visit to England, eight years 
lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, and "for several of 
those years the representative in Parliament of one of the island 
boroughs." * He must have been now an Episcopalian under 
the Test Act of 1673 to 1828, to have had a seat in Parliament. 
He is said to have been the first native-born American who ever 
sat in Parliament. The date of his first church connection we 
have not found. He joined the society in Boston at King's 
Chapel in 1702, and became an active vestryman the same year 
that he became governor. 2 Dudley's important connection with 
the English church in Boston is shown by his correspondence in 
Perry's Hist, of the Church in Massachusetts, 74-108. 

This religious position of a native-born Massachusetts man, 
with such an inheritance, from such a father, who was the very 
apostle of Puritanism fifty years before, steadfast and resolute, 
and he a loyal governor in these degenerate times, was more than 
enough to set both of the Mathers into a towering rage and fill 
them, as they sat at the head of surviving Puritanism, with the 
" rancor of theological hatred " and bitter jealousy in the midst 
of Dudley's triumphs. 

This furnishes a key to the bitter correspondence between the 
Mathers and Dudley in the Mass. Hist. Coll., 1st series, vol. iii. 
pp. 126-138. Also to that "Memorial of the Present Deplorable 
State of New England," published in 1707, and another in 1708, 
with which the Mathers were believed to be more or less con- 
nected. 8 The answer to the first of these pamphlets is " A 
Modest Enquiry," etc., associated with it in the same vol. iii. 
p. 66*. The editors of the Historical Society in this volume 
have made some very pertinent remarks in their Introductory 
Note, p. 30*. 

" In view of these pamphlets, we may perhaps conclude that 
the dissimulation was the other way. It looks rather as if Cot- 
ton Mather, aspiring to the presidency of the college, had pre- 
tended friendship to Governor Dudley ; and, concluding that the 
election would be settled in 1707, he gave vent to his malice by 
sending to England the manuscript of this first pamphlet." 

1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc, 2d series, ii. 172. 

2 Quincy's Hist. Harvard Univ., i. 359. 

8 Mass. Hist. Coll., 5th series, vi. 27*-i3i*; Doyle's English in America, 
ii. 472. 



458 APPENDIX B 

There are two charges made against Dudley in these pam- 
phlets, and reiterated since that day, First, that he was ambi- 
tious ; second, that he was inordinately selfish, and took and gave 
bribes in office, which is not proven, and since the presumption 
of innocency protects him it may be regarded as false. The first 
we have no doubt was strictly true ; without strong ambition he 
could not have attained to the great trusts imposed on him. We 
must regard the times, to be just to Dudley, and consider that 
in the midst of ardent friends he was surrounded by powerful 
enemies who exaggerated faults and misrepresented events. 
Governor Hutchinson, writing only half a century later, with 
these pamphlets before him, from which he has quoted freely, 
says of Dudley, "The visible increase of his substance made 
some incredible reports of gross bribery and corruption to be 
very easily received ; but, in times when party spirit prevails, 
what will not a governor's enemies believe, however injurious 
and absurd ? . . . Few men have been pursued by their enemies 
with greater virulence, and few have been supported by their 
friends with greater zeal." 1 

It is a frequent method in our own times to measure the in- 
tegrity and good faith of public men by their poverty. Nothing 
can be more absurd, as the sources of fortunes are so many and 
various. It has been recently asserted that no man of wealth 
has been, or ever can be, president of the United States, with the 
free and full consent of the American people. Moreover, that 
we take extreme care to keep them poor, to guarantee their purity 
and virtue. 

Josiah Quincy informs us that " the friends of the college and 
of Dudley did not fail to appear in his defense, and to express 
publicly their reprobation of the conduct of the Mathers." The 
clergy also took sides on the occasion. 

The pulpit, according to the too frequent custom of the period, 
was made the organ of crimination and recrimination. The 
Mathers " preached and prayed about their contest with the gov- 
ernor." Mr. Pemberton " resented Cotton Mather's letter," and 
said that " if he were Dudley, he would humble him, though it 
cost him his head." And Colman, preaching at the lecture in 
Boston, treated the topics of " envy and revenge," in connection 
with the question whether "the spirit was truly regenerated or 
1 Hist. Mass., ii. 213. 



APPENDIX B 459 

no," in a manner to be "reckoned that he lashed" the Mathers 
and their party. 1 

Mr. J. A. Doyle, who has recently entered with true historic 
spirit into this distracted period and its controversies, says, " No 
one can read the pamphlets against Dudley and not trace the 
hand of Cotton Mather," — the hero and centre of the witchcraft 
delusion. " At the same time it was clear that the attacks on 
the governor had produced little effect in England." 2 He says 
further, that "there is no distinct evidence that Dudley was a 
corrupt man. It would seem rather as if, in his case, cupidity 
was overruled and subdued by ambition. To tower over his 
countrymen as the representative of English ideas and interests, 
raised above petty provincial views, seems to have been Dudley's 
guiding object. . . . Nor is there anything to forbid the belief 
that he at least connived at corruption, though he did not himself 
profit by it." The burden of proof is on the person who suggests 
this allegation of connivance without evidence. The presump- 
tion of innocence remains strong and unbroken. Who would in 
recent times have the audacity to hold up presidents of the repub- 
lic, governors of States, or generals of the army, as accessaries 
and confederates of treasonable, corrupt army contractors? or 
disloyal men who in time of war barter with the enemy ? Is the 
mere fact that such high crimes are committed by men in impor- 
tant official position to be deemed sufficient, without other evi- 
dence, to blast the character of their superiors in office ? If this 
be so, no administration can escape condemnation, for none has 
been without them which had a revolution on its hands. History 
affords few examples, if any, of chief magistrates charged with 
great responsibilities fighting both for and against the common 
enemy. Dudley was never bad enough or weak enough for that 
sort of an enterprise. This slanderous and disreputable stricture 
upon the otherwise good name of Dudley seems to have been 
the offspring of envy, jealousy, surmise, distrust, and malice, of 
which the sad story of witchcraft has shown the authors to have 
been fully capable. 

One fact relieves these disreputable opinions. It is that his 
son Paul was coupled with him in wrong-doing by the Mathers ; 
but fortunately we have his distinguished record apart from his 

1 Hist. Harvard Univ., i. 202, 203. 

2 The English in America, ii. 472. 



460 APPENDIX B 

father's, and can judge for ourselves. Paul Dudley was attorney, 
general of Massachusetts during nearly the entire governorship 
of his father, and three years more, until 17 18, when he was 
raised to be a judge in the highest court, and held that position 
for twenty-seven years ; when, in 1745, he was created chief jus- 
tice of the same court, and continued till his death in 1751, cover- 
ing in all a period of forty-nine years, in which, excepting the 
Mather insinuations, he seems to have been respected and highly 
honored ; and yet with all this record he could not escape 
calumny from this source. Quincy says, "But the talent and 
independence he exhibited in the offices he subsequently held 
gradually restored him to the favor of the people. In 17 18 he 
was raised to the bench, and was finally made chief justice of the 
province, in which office his conduct obtained universal appro- 
bation." * Men grow better, and sometimes worse, we admit, but 
this record shows the mental and moral constitution of the man. 
" Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " He was, 
with Franklin and others, " a leading student of nature in this 
country." 2 

Perhaps I cannot do better than to quote the words of some of 
Joseph Dudley's contemporaries, to show how he was esteemed, 
since we have seen how he has been ungraciously treated by a 
portion of them. 

Mr. Dean Dudley has furnished us with an extract from the 
writings of Rev. Benjamin Colman, of the class of 1692 at Har- 
vard, first minister of Brattle Street Church, Boston, Mass. Mr. 
Colman was visiting England, evidently some time after 1701, 
since he calls him Colonel Dudley, a title he acquired during his 
government in the Isle of Wight. He says, " I am, myself, a wit- 
ness of the honor and esteem he was in there, and his country not 
a little for his sake, among wise and learned men, both at Lon- 
don and at Cambridge. He was then in the prime of his # life, 
and shone at the very court and among the philosophers of the 
age." 

He continues, " When I was at Cambridge, England, as soon 
and as often as I had occasion to say that I came from New Eng- 
land, I was eagerly asked if I knew Colonel Dudley, who had 
lately appeared there with my Lord Cutts, and one and another 

1 Hist. Harvard Univ., ii. 139. 

3 Tyler's Hist. Am. Lit, ii. 317. See Paul Dudley, Eliot's Diet. 



APPENDIX B 461 

spoke with such admiration of the man, as the modesty and 
humility of my country will not allow me to repeat." The vera- 
city and judgment of Mr. Colman cannot be questioned, as he was 
the author of three volumes of evangelical sermons. 

It was certainly a confirmation of the existence of these distin- 
guished friendships 1 for Dudley in England that he received such 
special favors from Major-General Lord John Cutts, one of the 
illustrious commanders at the battles of Boyne, Namur, and Blen- 
heim, and governor of the Isle of Wight when Dudley was lieu- 
tenant-governor, during eight years, through his influence no 
doubt. Sir Richard Steele, subsequently distinguished as the 
founder of the British Essayist, and the " father of periodical 
writing " in the Augustan age of English literature, was in 1695 
taken into the household of Lord Cutts and made his secretary ; 
thus for about five years he and Dudley were companions, and 
are said to have been friends, with congenial interests and sym- 
pathies. Steele was twenty-five years younger, we are informed, 2 
and was attentive to the counsel and opinions of Dudley. 

Dudley's last days in office, after the storm of revolution had 
subsided and people had accepted the national government 
in place of the local, were his best and most popular in the 
colony. The Boston News-Letter, for many years the one news- 
paper in Boston, gave in No. 834 of its issue the following com- 
prehensive and glowing estimate of him, which could not have 
been satisfactory to all readers of the paper ; but since the smoke 
of that inevitable conflict has blown away, it may not be found 

1 J. A.Doyle's Eng. in Amer., ii. 407, 408. 

2 Letter of Richard Steele to Joseph Dudley : — 

June, 25, 1700. 

SIR, — I have your kind raillery of the 4th, and shall not pretend to answer 
it ; you excuse my not doing that in your observation of the loss of my brains, 
but the circumstances of that matter are such, that you yourself, as wise as 
you really are, would have done the same thing. You cannot imagine the 
sincere pleasure Mrs. Lawrence's Pity gave me. I always had an honor for 
her, and knew she had, at the bottom, a generous disposition. 

I am just come of Hampton Court Guard. You already know Lord Jersey 
is Chamberlain, Lord Rumney, Groom of the Stole [first lord of the bed- 
chamber in the royal household]. 'T is expected Lord Pembroke will be 
Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Lexington, or Mr. Hill, Secretary in Lord 
Jersey's room. 

You shall always find me, Dear Sir, your most obedient, ready humble 
servant, R. Steele. 

(Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, 2d series, Jan. 1887, 201.) 



462 APPENDIX B 

so extravagant in praise. " He was a man of rare endowments 
and shining accomplishments ; a singular honor to his country, 
and in many respects the glory of it. He was early its darling, 
always its ornament, and in his age its crown. The scholar, 1 
the divine, the philosopher, and the lawyer all met in him. He 
was visibly formed for government ; and under his administration, 
by the blessing of Almighty God, we enjoyed great quietness, 
and were safely steered through a long and difficult French and 
Indian war." 2 

This was contemporary Massachusetts testimony of the press, 
which, if servile, was nevertheless solicitous for its reputation 
with its readers, and would not venture far away from existing 
public sentiment. 

The family of Governor Thomas Dudley was at the end of 
three quarters of a century in complete, undisputed ascendency 
in Massachusetts. No other family had such a hold on the gov- 
ernment and the high places of power before or since. But, as 
Governor Washburn says, " the name has yielded to the republi- 
can tendencies of our institutions, and is not now to be found 
among those in place and power in our commonwealth." 3 The 
father was governor ; his son Paul attorney-general ; and his son 
William in public service in an embassy to Canada, and a military 
expedition against Port Royal. These sons were both very influ- 
ential for many years in Massachusetts. 4 

1 Tyler's Hist. Am. Lit., ii. 312, 313, 317. 

2 Governor Emory Washburn said of him in 1840, " No native of New 
England had passed through so many scenes and enjoyed so many public 
honors and offices as Governor Dudley. 

" Had he remained in private life, he would have been justly eminent as a 
philosopher and scholar, a divine or lawyer. He was, in fact, to no small extent 
all these, even amidst the cares and perplexities of public life. 

" In private life he was amiable, affable and polite, elegant in his manners, 
and courteous and gentlemanly in his intercourse with all classes. His person 
was large, and his countenance open, dignified, and intelligent. He had been 
familiar with the court, and his address and conversation were uncommonly 
graceful and pleasing. As a judge he was distinguished for gravity, dignity, 
and on ordinary occasions mildness of manner. As a chief magistrate, none 
could doubt his capacity to govern, and the prudence with which he managed 
the affairs of the province disarmed even the opposition of his enemies. . . . 
He was justly regarded as an honor to Massachusetts." (Jud. Hist. Mass., 
119, 120; History of Dudley Family, i. 163-196, 313-336.) 

3 Jud. Hist. Mass., 120. 

4 Washburn's Jud. Hist. Mass., 283, 326; Hutch., Hist. Mass., i. 154, note. 



APPENDIX B 463 

Joseph Dudley, forgetful of the sturdy independence of his 
father, was thought by some persons to be too loyal to the crown, 
too fond of the English church, too selfish and ambitious for 
public trust. 1 

Dudley, from 1683 to 17 15, recognizing his influence at home 
and his prestige in England, and being an accomplished gentle- 
man and politician, deemed it, as others before and since have 
done, to be his privilege and duty to take and hold office for the 
good of Massachusetts, not forgetting the honor which ought to 
attend faithful service. 

A remarkable change both in the politics of England and of 
Massachusetts had given a new turn to affairs. That ignoring of 
the English government, which had distinguished the administra- 
tions of Winthrop and of his father, was no longer possible. The 
province was now of sufficient importance to attract the attention 
of the covetous and powerful Louis XIV. and other European 
sovereigns, while hostile Indians on every side created anxiety. 

There was only one course open to Dudley as matters then 
stood : that was to cling loyally to the service and protection of 
the mother country. An attempt at revolt then would have been 
fatal ; the era for the Revolution had not arrived. Neither would 
the crown tolerate half-hearted service ; he must do his duty, or a 
foreigner would take his place. It would have been worse than 
criminal then to have awakened the wrath of England, with no 
sympathetic Puritan party to assist, with the hierarchy and the 
Stuarts in power, without army or navy, and with growing bitter- 

1 It has been said in the same spirit, in recent years, that the magnificent 
patriotism of Daniel Webster, so conspicuous at Plymouth Rock, at Bunker 
Hill, and in the Senate, was quenched in 1850 by his unworthy ambition to be 
president. " So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn which once he wore." 
The political situation devoted him to political destruction, to which he ad- 
vanced with the same love of country, cherishing with the deepest and most 
sincere affections of his heart the Constitution and the Union, imploring his 
fellow-citizens of every section of the nation to pause, consider, lay aside pas- 
sion, and listen to reason. It was one of the remarkable incidents of the Civil 
War that the generation of men from the North, who fought it, had been 
trained to love the Union, and educated to comprehend its marvelous signif- 
icance, by declaiming at school the masterly utterances of Webster. His wis- 
dom, his thoughts, had penetrated to the heart of the nation, and filled its life 
currents with one great overmastering conviction, " Liberty and Union, now 
and forever, one and inseparable." He and John Brown marched at the head 
of the advance column of the army of the Union. 



464 APPENDIX C 

ness constantly extending between Old and New England, which 
was at last to result in independence. His ardent love for Massa- 
chusetts was fully attested. He was an able man, long in public 
life, and created by his positive career strong friends and bitter 
enemies. His public record, as we have noticed, received both 
severe criticism and the highest commendation from his contem- 
poraries ; and the time may yet come — and our faith in justice 
at last prompts us to say that it will come — when the exalted pa- 
triotism of Dudley and Webster will receive universal encomium. 

It is difficult to do justice to the magnificent men who, as the 
final severance from England came, were found on the loyal side 
in politics. Judges of the greatest influence, scholars of the first 
rank, men with the purest character, with consciences void of 
offense, with unflinching fidelity clung to fatherland, and with 
great sufferings and sacrifices held their true allegiance to the 
British throne to the end. Examine the spotless records of judges 
like Peter Oliver, and a multitude of others, whose only reproach 
was that they were on the wrong side of politics, for which they 
were exiled or ostracized, and it will assist us to realize the polit- 
ical environment of Dudley earlier, and prepare us to meet the 
discreditable charges of his bitter rivals and enemies. We our- 
selves followed near enough to the Revolution to have an almost 
irrepressible hatred of England in our childhood, which we are 
much pleased to have outgrown, but that hostility embraced 
every person, without reason or mercy, who was not on the polit- 
ical side with the fathers. 

The time will come, if it has not, when both sides of the situa- 
tion may be regarded without passion or prejudice, and the 
obloquy which has been thrown upon the memory of some of the 
ablest and best Americans of the past will disappear from the his- 
tory of our country. 



APPENDIX C 

GOVERNOR SIMON BRADSTREET AND HIS WIFE, ANNE 

Anne Bradstreet, the oldest daughter of Governor Thomas 
Dudley, was born in Northamptonshire, England, about 1612, 
while her father was with Judge Nicolls, and died at Andover, 
Mass., September 16, 1672. She married Governor Simon Brad- 



APPENDIX D 465 

street, who was nine years older than herself, in 1628, and went 
with him and with her father and his family on the Arbella, to 
New England, in 1630. 

' Anne was only sixteen years old when she married Mr. Brad- 
street. They must have had an excellent opportunity to become 
acquainted with each other during the eight years that Bradstreet 
was " under the direction of " her father at Sempringham, in the 
family of the Earl of Lincoln, " the best family of any nobleman 
then in England," from his sixteenth to his twenty-fourth year. 
It adds another interest to the Church of St. Andrew's that these 
young people went in and out of it as we see it now, and may 
have been married within its ancient walls. 1 

Mrs. Bradstreet was the mother of eight children. She was 
the author of the first volume of poems written in America, pub- 
lished in 1640. Both her poetry and her prose have received 
merited praise. Tyler says, " Somehow, during her busy lifetime, 
she contrived to put upon record compositions numerous enough 
to fill a royal octavo volume of four hundred pages, — compo- 
sitions which entice and reward our reading of them two hundred 
years after she lived." 2 Bradstreet was governor from 1679 to 
1686, and from 1689 to 1692. He was for many years a com- 
missioner of the United Colonies. He was the Nestor of New 
England ; born in 1603, died 1697. He was the youngest of the 
original assistants, and survived them all, continuing in that office 
from 1630 for forty-nine years. He was educated at Emanuel 
College, Cambridge, Eng. He married for his second wife the 
sister of Sir George Downing. 3 



APPENDIX D 

MAJOR-GENERAL DENNISON AND HIS WIFE, PATIENCE 

Dudley's second daughter, Patience, was born in England, and 
died at Ipswich, Mass., February 8, 1689-90. She married at 
Cambridge, Mass., Major-General Daniel Dennison, a very distin- 

1 Mather's Mag., i. bk. ii. 126. 

2 Hist, of Amer. Lit., i. 280 : Allibone's Diet., i. 236 ; John Harvard Ellis's 
Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse, 1867 ; Duyckinck's Cyclo. of 
Amer. Lit., i. 52. 

3 Young's Chron , 125. 



466 APPENDIX D 

guished person in the colony. He was born in England in 1613, 
and died at Ipswich, Mass., September 20, 1682. He came to 
America the next year after the emigration of his wife, viz., in 
1 63 1. They removed with Thomas Dudley to Ipswich in 1635. 
He was a commissioner, as we have seen, to treat with D'Aulnay 
in 1646 at Penobscot, and was after that major-general of the 
colonial forces for ten years. He was speaker of the House in 
1649 an d in 1651-52. He was secretary of the colony in 1653, 
and justice of the Quarterly Court in 1658. He was com- 
missioner of the United Colonies in 1654-62 inclusive, and sub- 
stitute commissioner in 1671, 1673, 1674-75, and 1679. He and 
Bradstreet were the two commissioners from Massachusetts from 
1654 to 1662, with the single exception that John Endicott took 
his place in 1658. Either Dennison or Bradstreet, or both of them, 
were commissioners or substitutes from the decease of Dudley 
until 1680, with the exception of 1667-68, 1676, and 1678, in 
which last year Joseph Dudley took the position, and continued 
in it, excepting 1682 and 1683, until 1685, or nearly to the end of 
the first charter. Dennison was an assistant from 1653, the date 
of Dudley's death, until 1667. If we take into account the fact 
that Bradstreet was governor from 1679 to 1686, and assistant 
from 1668 until 1678, and that he was not only a son-in-law of 
Dudley, but began his active life with him at Sempringham and 
subordinate to him ; and further, that Joseph Dudley followed 
them into power and continued in it until old age, in 17 15, with 
little interruption, we shall be sure that the Dudley family was 
more intimately associated with the first century of Massachusetts 
history than the family of any other one of the distinguished 
immigrants of 1630, or of their predecessors, to this country. 
Such summary ought also to include Paul and William Dudley. 

Dennison has the distinction also of having made the revision 
of the Code of 1660 and the index to it. 1 Johnson says of Denni- 
son, " Their first Major, who now commandeth this Regiment, is 
the proper and valiant Major Daniel Dennison, a good soldier, 
and of a quick capacity, not inferior to any other of these chief 
officers ; his own company are well instructed in feats of warlike 
activity." 2 

1 See Col. Laws of Mass. supervised by Whitmore, 1 19-216, also Introduc. 
to same, 99 ; Poole's edition of Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence, cvii. 
- Whitmore's Col. Laws, 192. 



APPENDIX E 467 

He was the author of a curious tract, with the title " Irenicon, 
or Salve for New England's Sore." 1 



APPENDIX E 

REV. SAMUEL DUDLEY 

Rev. Samuel Dudley, son of Thomas, was born in Northamp- 
tonshire, England, about 1608, while his father was clerk of 
Judge Nicolls, and died February 10, 1683, at Exeter, N. H. 
He came with his father to America in the Arbella in 1630. He 
was married, in 1632, to Mary, the daughter of Governor Win- 
throp. He erected a house which stood at or near the corner 
of Dunster and Mount Auburn streets, in Cambridge. He re- 
moved to Ipswich in 1635, in company with his father. He 
founded with others the town of Salisbury in 1638. He repre- 
sented Salisbury in the General Court in 1642, 1643, J 644, and 
1645. He was associate judge for the year 1649 w i tn Richard 
Bellingham, and Samuel Simonds for the county of Norfolk. 2 
His wife, Mary, after eleven years of companionship with him, 
died April 12, 1643, at Salisbury. 8 He married Mary Byley, of 
Salisbury, in 1643. Mr. Dudley was the pastor at Exeter, N. H., 
in 1650. He asked the town in 1655 to reduce his salary, it 
being a year of hardship and misfortune. In 1659 he preached 
at Portsmouth, N. H., upon invitation, and received a call to 
settle there, with an offer of eighty pounds a year, which he 
declined, and continued at Exeter, at a smaller salary! He 
took an interest in mills and farming. Dean Dudley says that 
" he seems to have been the first in this country to attempt to 
improve the breed of horses, cattle, and sheep." He met with 
the loss of his second wife in 165 1, and later married his last 
wife, Elizabeth. His children, so far as known, numbered eigh- 
teen. He seems to have retained public confidence to the age of 
seventy-five years, and died with the affectionate regard of all 
who knew him, and his memory has been kindly cherished by 
every writer since his day. 

1 Winthrop, ii. *?59. 

2 Mass. Col. Rec, ii. 266 ; see, also, 242. 
8 Life and Letters of Winthrop, ii. 321. 



468 APPENDIX F 

APPENDIX F 

REV. JOHN WOODBRIDGE AND HIS WIFE, MERCY. 

Rev. John Woodbridge, son-in-law of Dudley, was born in Stan- 
ton, Wiltshire, England, in 1614, and died in Newbury, Mass., 
March 17, 1695. He was sent to Oxford, where he remained 
" until the oath of confornfity came to be required of him, which, 
neither his father nor his conscience approving, he removed 
thence into a course of more private studies." He came to Amer- 
ica in the ship Mary and John, in 1634, and settled in Newbury, 
Mass., of which he was town clerk in 1634-38, and surveyor of 
arms in 1637. In 1639 ne married Mercy, the youngest daughter 
of Thomas Dudley by his first wife. She had crossed the ocean 
with her father in the Arbella, in 1630. There were twelve chil- 
dren by this marriage. He taught in Boston in 1643, following 
the advice of his father, Dudley, given in a letter dated Novem- 
ber 28, 1642. 1 Still further following the advice of said letter, he 
was chosen the first minister of Andover, Mass., and ordained 
September 4, 1647, according to Mather. He, with others, pur- 
chased the land from the Indians on which that town was built. 
He returned to England in 1647, and was chaplain to the parlia- 
mentary commissioners who made a treaty with the king at the 
Isle of Wight. He was afterwards a minister at various places, 
until he was rejected after the Restoration. He returned to New 
England in 1663, and served as an assistant to Rev. Thomas 
Parker until November 30, 1670. He was an assistant in 1683-84. 
There is an island named for him near the mouth of the Merri- 
mac River. " He was observably overwhelmed by the death of 
his most religious, prudent, and faithful consort, when she was, 
July 1, 169 1, fifty years after his first marriage unto her, torn 
away from the desire of his eyes. His value of the whole world 
was, after a manner, extinguished in this loss, of what was to 
him the best part of it ; and he sometimes declared himself desir- 
ous to be gone, whenever the Lord of Heaven should be pleased 
to call him thither." 2 Savage says he had seen a letter from 
Dudley dated July 8, 1648, to him, " Preacher of the word of God 
at Andover in Wiltshire," advising of the means he would follow 

1 See p. 287 of this volume. 

2 Mather's Mag., i. 542-544. 



APPENDIX H 469 

to send his wife and children. 1 We have been unable to find 
this letter. 

APPENDIX G 

CAPTAIN JONATHAN WADE AND HIS WIFE, DEBORAH 

Thomas Dudley's youngest daughter, Deborah, was born Feb- 
ruary 27, 1645, an d died November 1, 1683. She married Jona- 
than Wade, whose native place was Ipswich, but he removed to 
Medford, Mass. He was admitted a freeman in 1669. He was 
captain of the " Three County Troop of Horse." He died 
November, 24, 1689. 2 

APPENDIX II 

SARAH PACEV 

Sarah, the third daughter of Thomas Dudley, was baptized 
July 23, 1620, at Sempringham, England, as we are informed by 
Dean Dudley, and died in Roxbury, Mass., in 1659, Savage says, 
"very poor." 3 She was married, September 1, 1638, to Major 
Benjamin Keayne, the son of Captain Robert Keayne, the first 
commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. 
They had one child, Ann or Hannah, who seems to have been 
respected during her life, although her grandfather Keayne, in 
the most remarkable will extant for length and irrelevant matter, 
manifested such distrust of her that it might well, when read by 
strangers, cast a shade upon her character. So that we are 
inclined to think that any reflection upon her in literature is an 
exhalation from that will. 

We should willingly avoid entering upon the sad story of Mrs. 
Benjamin Keayne, were it not for the fact that her brothers and 
sisters have been considered, and it seems due to her memory to 
trace her career, of which very little is known. Her husband 
deserted her and went to England in disgust, Savage says, in 
1645. ^ seems that Keayne had an estate in Lynn, Mass., and 
that he made an assignment of his property to his wife and his 
father after his departure to England, or immediately previous, 
and the Court thought that the assignment might be detrimental 

1 Winthrop, ii. *2^. See, also, Mather's Mag., i. 542, and Second Reunion 
of the Dudley Association, October 17, 1893, P- 3&- 

2 N. E. Genealog. Reg., iv. 378. 
8 Winthrop, ii. 4, note. 



470 APPENDIX H 

to the claim of certain orphans upon the estate of Keayne, and 
it ordered that the Lynn "farm shall not be alienated." It seems 
quite possible that Keayne went to England to avoid his American 
creditors. He left his wife behind him, who was loyal enough to 
him to gather all she could, with the help, no doubt, of her co- 
assignee, and take it with her to England. She was unfortunate, 
and lost the property by the perils of the sea, or, as it was said, 
" all her goods miscarried and she escaped only with her life." 1 

It is quite possible that if she had succeeded in taking money 
to England she would have been more welcome to her husband. 
But when she came with only her life and no visible means of 
support, he at once repudiated her. If he was in fact an honest 
bankrupt he had very little money, because we may conclude that 
she was in London in 1646, within a year of his going, and while 
the assignment of his property in Massachusetts was in force. 
Keayne wrote three disgusting letters about his wife in March, 
1646, from London, as follows: March 12, to the Rev. John 
Cotton ; March 15, to the Rev. Mr. Wilson ; March 18, to Thomas 
Dudley, all of Massachusetts. These letters are recorded in 
Boston, Mass., with Suffolk Deeds, i. 83, 84. 

He charges her with unfaithfulness to him, but admits that he 
has no legal evidence. Dudley drew from him in a letter exactly 
what he wanted, viz. : " I do plainly declare my resolution, never 
again to live with her as a husband." 

This letter to Mr. Dudley seems to have been recorded Sep- 
tember 13, 1647. Savage says that she was disciplined Novem- 
ber, 1646, for irregular prophesying. If it was in America, which 
is probable, "the Puritans maintained frequent religious exer- 
cises, in which texts of Scripture were interpreted or discussed, 
one speaking to the subject after another, in an orderly method." 2 
This was prophesying. What her irregular conduct was does not 
appear, or the extent of the discipline, or the tribunal which 
enforced the discipline. Savage says further that she was excom- 
municated in October, 1647. Again we have no particulars of 
the charge, complaint, church, or tribunal. And we do not know 
whether it is worthy of consideration or not. 

All this is from an unfriendly source. 

1 Letter of Gurdon to John Winthrop, June 6, 1649. Mass. Hist. Coll., 
4th series, vi. 56S. 

2 Neal in New England's Memorial, 171, note. 



APPENDIX H 471 

She married Thomas Pacey, of Boston, Mass., about 1649. 
This fact carries with it a great amount of relief in the case, be- 
cause she had no fortune to tempt him, and he must have had 
confidence in her ; because she could not have married unless 
she had been divorced, and also had leave to marry by the Court. 1 
The desertion was proven by the letter to Mr. Dudley, quoted 
above. If the Court had believed the charges of her husband, it 
would never have granted the divorce. The crime would have 
been punishable with death. 2 The fact that the letters are re- 
corded would seem to indicate that Dudley regarded Benjamin 
Keayne as an unprincipled man who ought to be shown up to the 
world as nothing but his own composition could do it. 

Mr. Savage has called this last a marriage of convenience. He 
seems to regard it as not altogether creditable. Dudley was a 
member of the Court of the highest integrity. He calls her Mrs. 
Pacey in his will, and at other times. Mr. Robert Keayne, who 
was very hostile to her, calls her Mrs. Pacey in his will. She is 
mentioned frequently as Mrs. Pacey by many persons at different 
times. It was then a bona fide marriage, whether convenient or 
otherwise. We can discover no ground for flinging disagreeable 
insinuations at her. Savage says at last that she " was sadly de- 
graded." There seems to be no other foundation for this state- 
ment than her poverty. Her father left to her the income of about 
five hundred dollars, in 1653. He had many children to assist, 
and may have given her portion to her earlier. He assisted her 
to a home in Roxbury in 1647. The town of Boston was- careful 
that she be not received as an inhabitant without security that she 
would not become a charge, which was furnished. But they fol- 
lowed hundreds of excellent people, as the record shows, with the 
same solicitude. It is no sin to be poor. The noblest and best 
who have passed through this world have experienced poverty ; 
even " He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green 
figs between Bethany and Jerusalem." Martin Luther devoutly 
prayed, " Lord God, I thank thee that thou hast been pleased to 
make me a poor and indigent man upon earth. I have neither 
house nor lands nor money to leave behind me." 

" The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 
Is king o' men for a' that ! " 

1 See case of Mrs. Pester, Mass. Col. Rec, iii. 277. 

2 Body of Liberties, 1641. Capital Laws, p. 94, \ 9. 



472 APPENDIX I 

APPENDIX I 

PAUL DUDLEY 

Paul Dudley, the third son of Governor Thomas Dudley, was 
born September 8, 1650, and died December 1, 1681. He was 
about three years old when his father died. He married Mary, 
the daughter of Governor John Leverett, and thus connected 
two very influential families. 

Mr. Dean Dudley says that " Mr. Paul Dudley was a merchant 
and collector of customs at the port of Boston and Charlestown. 
His dwelling-house stood on the town street leading to the dock. 
The dock was where Faneuil Hall stands ; Dock Square was 
so named from the dock." 1 He was for a brief period judge of 
probate of Suffolk County, Mass. 

He and his brother Joseph became members of the Ancient 
and Honorable Artillery Company in 1677. He appears to have 
been contented with private life, and to have left the precarious 
turmoil of politics to his brother Joseph, who evidently reveled 
in its turbulent storms. 

1 History of Dudley Family, i. 337. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abscinded from the charter, government of 

Massachusetts in England, 68. 
Adventurers without principle vex the emi- 
grants in the beginning, 117. 
African slavery, 330. 
Agreement, Cambridge, 72. 
Alcock, Mrs., sister of Rev. Mr. Hooker, 

death of, 85. 
Alden, John, prisoner in Boston, 173-175. 
Alfred the Great, grave of, and the emigration, 

57 ; will of, and English freedom, 57. 
Allen, Bozoun, and Dudley, trouble between, 

390- 
Almanac, early literature in New England, 256. 
Amiens, cathedral of, 21 ; siege of, 20-23. 
Anabaptists and Puritans, 219, 341, 407, 408. 
Anagram by Mr. Eliot, 329. 
Ancestry, not much regarded in America, 9, 10 ; 

Dudley and other Puritans careless of, 91. 
Ancient and Honorable Artillery of Boston, 

253. 
Andrews, Richard, donations of, 326. 
Andrew's, St., church, 37, 38, 465, 469. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, and Joseph Dudley, 453. 
Antinomian controversy, 219. 
Antinomians and Dudley, 226, 232. 
Antinomians and United Colonies, 222. 
Antinomians, Winthrop, and the name, 228. 
Antinous, page of Hadrian, 17. 
Apparel, laws respecting, 186. 
Appeals to England refused, 344. 
Aquiday (Rhode Island) and Dudley's answer, 

275- 

Arbella, Lady, 37, 46, 53, 58, 60, 64. 

Arbella, the ship, 58, 66, 74 ; bears the first 

charter of Massachusetts to America, 66. 
Aristocracy and poverty, 410. 
Arms, coats of, Thomas Dudley and Joseph 

Dudley, 5. 
Army worms, 349. 
Arnold, Benedict, 300. 
Arnold, S. G., strictures on Dudley, 278; 

opinion of Dudley, 284. 
Arnold, William, 300. 
Articles of Confederation, 298. 
Ashby Castle, home of Dudley, 1, 13, 14. 
Assembly of Westminster divines, 342. 
Assistants, reduced in number, 88; are made 

representatives of the people and of the 

freemen, 94, 95, 118. 
Assistants and deputies contest, 1643, 189. 
Assistants, Court of, last one in England, 59 ; 

first court of, Charlestown, 91; a court of 

judicature, 93 ; judicial powers transferred 

to, 255. 

Bacon, Lord, 9, 18, 27, 28. 



Ballot, introduced, 165 ; beans used for, 372. 

Baptism, not the true and political power, 341; 
in 165 1, dangers to the colony, 407. 

Bargains in poetry, 417. 

Bay Psalm Book, 256, 275. 

Bay of Massachusetts, 79, 80. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 18. 

Becket, Thomas a, 36. 

Beer, wholesome, 407. 

Belcher, Gov. Jonathan, 418. 

Bellingham, Richard, in law-making, 266, 280, 
282; governor, 1641, and unpopular, 279' 
married, 2S0 ; resigns, 282 ; compared wit ' 
Dudley, 282 ; admonished by the Court, 281 ■ 
and Saltonstall oppose the assistants, 294 ; 
reconciled to the magistrates, 294 ; and Sal- 
tonstall against the magistrates in the sow 
business, 315. 

Bible, the, in politics, 190; supreme law, 265 ; 
in Massachusetts, 412. 

Bigotry in Massachusetts, 353 ; of Thomas 
Dudley, 279, 423. 

Blackstone, Mr., and Boston, Mass., 84. 

Blasphemy and Roger Williams, 136, 137. 

Body of Liberties, 203, 265, 285, 286. 

Book of discipline, 344. 

Books on the law, 371. 

Boston, England, home of Dudley, 31, 34, 49. 

Boston, Massachusetts, Puritans in, 66; for- 
merly Trimountain, 79; settlement of, 85; 
name of, 92 ; made the permanent capital of 
Massachusetts, 92 ; or Cambridge to be the 
capital, 155 ; and Ann Hutchinson, 224; dis- 
turbed by Captain Stagg, 323. 

Botolph, St., church of, 49. 

Boyle, Hon. Robert, and the gospel in Massa- 
chusetts, 392. 

Boys, military drill of, 328. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 4, 464 ; and her father, 247 , 
earliest poet, 262. 

Bradstreet, Simon, 58, 84, 464; steward of 
Earl of Lincoln, 47; first winter in Boston, 
84; selectman of Cambridge in 1634-5, '32. 

Brenton, Martha, desiring an Irish boy and 
girl, request granted, 416. 

British monarchy, collapse of, 341. 

Browne, John and Samuel, sent to England, 
81. 

Bunyan, John, 18. 

Burdett, George, and Dudley, 240. 

Burglars, 371. 

Business habits of Dudley, 289. 

Byron and Westminster Abbey, 436. 

Calef, Robert, 421. 

Calvinism, its influence for liberty in England, 
47 ; in Massachusetts, 357, 384. 



476 



INDEX 



Cam and the Isis, influence from, in America, 
190. 

Cambridge, England, University, Puritan in- 
fluence of, 31 ; home of Puritanism, 48; in- 
fluence of, in America, 191 ; men in America, 
256. 

Cambridge and Oxford, 287. 

Cambridge agreement, 72. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, first intended to 
be the capital, 92 ; founded by Thomas Dud- 
ley, 123 ; an early capital of Massachusetts, 
123, 124 ; canal in, 124 ; fortification of, 125, 
127 ; provision to secure beauty and safety 
of, 130, 131 ; early description of, 130-132; 
selectmen of, 132 ; or Boston to be the capi- 
tal, 95,96, 132, 135; the capital, 1634, 158; 
Cambridge faction, 190, 319; settlers from, 
in Connecticut, 210; synod of, 223, 344; fa- 
mous election at, 234; and the United Colo- 
nies, 326. 

Capital crimes, 266. 

Capital punishment and Miantonomoh, 312. 

Carpenter, William, 300. 

Castle Island, Boston, 183. 

Catechism, shorter and longer, 342. 

Cathedral service, 82. 

Catholics, Roman, and Roger Williams, 137. 

Caterpillars, 349. 

Caucus, 170, 296. 

Character of Dudley with the Earl of Lincoln, 
34, 40, 41; established in England, un- 
changed in America, 102-104,429. 

Charles I., 33, 35 ; death of, and Dudley, 390. 

Charles River and Dudley's land, 133. 

Charlestown, Massachusetts, 78, 79, 83, 84. 

Charta, Magna, 30, 265, 171. 

Charter of Harvard College, 243 ; in 1650, 
394- 

Charter of Massachusetts, granted, 55 ; the 
question of its transfer to America consid- 
ered, 52, 70-75, 145 ; how regarded by the 
people, 90 ; freemen and the, 94 ; removal to 
America, 66, 75, 145 ; writ of quo warranto, 
185; ordered to be returned to England, 
185 ; powers of, 348. 

Child, Major John, 337 ; a disturber in Eng- 
land, 346. 

Child and parent, 359. 

Children of Dudley by first marriage, there 
were five, 25, 464, 465, 467, 468, 469. 

Children, protection of, 407. 

Christianity, planting of, in America, 76, 77. 

Chuff, Indian, and Roger Williams, 313. 

Church of Sempringham, the old, 37, 38. 

Church of England, and the Humble Request, 
60-63. 

Church, First, 81-83. 

Church in America, need of simple services 
in, 82. 

Church and state united, 129. 

Church and the drama in Massachusetts, 267. 

Church in New England, 269. 

Church members only to be freemen, 119. 

Church membership restriction limited, 365. 

Churches established on the model of that at 
Salem, 116. 

Citizens not church members allowed to hold 
office, 365. 

Clarke, Dr. John, second charter of Rhode 
Island, 201 : soul liberty, 201 ; father of 
Rhode Island, 201. 

Cleever, Rev. Mr., minister and friend of 
Dudley, 24. 

Clinton, Theophilus, fourth Earl of Lincoln, 
3'- 



Clipsham, 49, 53. 

Cloth : linen, cotton, and woolen, 272. 

Clothing and the General Court, 254. 

Coats of arms, Thomas and Joseph Dudley, 5. 

Coddington, William, and wife, passengers on 
the Arbella, 5S ; letter of, to Dudley, 276. 

Coddington, Mrs. William, death of, 85. 

Coining money in Massachusetts, 413. 

Coke, Lord, 18, 26, 27, 51. 

Cole, Robert, 300. 

College, the, committee appointed to take 
order for, 242. 

Colony in distress upon arrival of Puritans, 77. 

Common Pleas, Court of, and Dudley, 26, 27, 
29. 5 1 - 

Common Prayer Book, disuse of, in America, 
81. 

Common schools in Massachusetts, 255, 256, 
366, 367. 

Commonwealths in England and America, 289. 

Compton family, friendly to Dudley family, 14. 

Compton, Henry, or Baron Compton, 1. 

Compton, William, family of, 12. 

Comptons not Puritans, 14. 

Compton- Winyates, home of Dudley, 12. 

Conant, Roger, at Salem, Mass., 55. 

Concord, land of Dudley at, 251-253. 

Confederacy of New England, 1643, 22 i of 
colonies, 298 ; and famihsm, 354 ; the power 
of, in the world, 373 ; Dudley president of,- in 
1649, 389; and Massachusetts, 427. 

Confession of Faith, 342, 344. 

Congregationalism in America, 82, 345. 

Connecticut, settled from Massachusetts, 210 ; 
river, rights on, 283 ; Massachusetts and, in 
trouble, 376 ; river, retaliatory act, 394. 

Conscience and suffrage, 164; rights of, in 
Massachusetts, 357, 358. 

Constitution of United States and Henry IV. 
of France, 22. 

Conveyances, fraudulent, 272. 

Corn, Dudley's trades in, vindicated, 11 1 ; 
prices of, 372. 

Corn Hill, Boston, 155. 

Cotton, Rev. John, minister of Dudley, 49 ; 
antagonistic to Hooker, 156; friend of Win- 
throp, 160 ; sermon on the stability of office, 
161 ; code of, not approved, 203 ; and the 
Council for Life, 212; and Wheelwright re- 
cant from Antinomian error, 224 ; letter from 
Sir Richard Saltonstall to, 241 ; letter of 
Dudley to, 257 ; the ministry of, 269 ; and 
Gorton, 305; and Hooker and Norton, in- 
fluence of, in England, 343. 

Council for Life, Dudley of, 213; in the Hing- 
ham case, 336. 

Council of Plymouth, 55. 

Council, the Standing, Dudley chosen mem- 
ber of, 213. 

Countess of Lincoln, 42, 77. 

Court of Common Pleas, England, 26, 27, 29, 
5i- 

Court records, 255. 

Courts, the, acts of, revealed public opinion, 
153 ; four General Courts to be held yearly, 
170; county created, 215 : General, time of, 
fixed, 215; county, 255; courts of Massa- 
chusetts, 392. 

Cowes, Isle of Wight, Puritans at, 59. 

Cradock, Matthew, 55 ; farewell of, to the 
Puritans, 60. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 50 ; attempted emigration to 
America, 250; friendship of, to Massachu- 
setts, 349; his attempt to colonize Ireland 
from America, 404. 



INDEX 



477 



Cross cut out of the ensign by Endicott, 152. 
Cruel punishments in Massachusetts, 139, 140. 
Cutshamekin, 302. 
Cutts, Major-General Lord John, 461. 

Dana, Richard H., 8. 

Dana, Richard H., Jr., 8. 

Danforth, Rev. S., 417. 

D'Aulnay, 350, 351. 

Deeds, acknowledgment of, 272. 

Democracy an early subject of solicitude, 94 ; 
dangers from, 171 ; and Massachusetts, 317 ; 
in Massachusetts, 335. 

Dennison, Daniel, 258, 465; Mrs. Patience, 
465 ; William, 258. 

Deputies and assistants contest, 1643, 189. 

Dexter, Thomas, relative importance of towns, 
153; in the bilboes, 153. 

Diary of Dudley, none, 91. 

Disability to hold office not limited to the 
Puritan state, 120, 121. 

Discipline of the Assembly, rejected in Amer- 
ica, 344 ; of the synod and the churches, 
391 ; book of, adopted, 406. 

Divine right of kings, 27. 

Dod, Rev. Mr., minister and friend of Dud- 
ley, 24, 32. 

Dogmatism in Massachusetts, 353. 

Donne, John, 18. 

Dorchester, settlement of, 85. 

Downing, Emanuel, at Sempringham, 44 ; and 
slavery, 333. 

Doyle, J. A., strictures on Dudley, 277. 

Drama, immoral influence of, 267. 

Dress, Court made rules upon, 186 ; superfluity 
in, 254; and rank, 410. 

Druillette, Father, in Boston, 399. 

Dryden, John, 18. 

Dudley Castle, 6, 7. 

Dudley family, friendly to Compton family, 14. 

Dudley mansion, destroyed at Roxbury, 262. 

Dudley, Anne (Bradstreet), 58, 464. 

Dudley, Baron, 6. 

Dudley, Dean, 3, 4. 

Dudley, Deborah (Wade), 469. 

Dudley, Dorothy, death of, 317. 

Dudley, Gov. Joseph, 8, 453 ; Harvard Col- 
lege and, 243-245 ; tomb of, 417 ; unpop- 
ularity of, injurious to Thomas Dudley, 434 ; 
agent to England, 454; president of New 
England, 455 ; prisoner in Boston, 455 ; 
Episcopalian, 457 ; quarrel with the Ma- 
thers, 458; and Richard Steele, 461 ; lieu- 
tenant-governor Isle of Wight, 461 ; exalted 
opinions respecting, 461, 462. 

Dudley, Mercy, 58, 46S ; married John Wood- 
bridge, 287. 

Dudley, Paul, Chief Justice, 8, 459; bene- 
factor of the college, 243 ; tomb of, 417. 

Dudley, Paul, son of Thomas Dudley, 472. 

Dudley, Patience, (Dennison), 58, 465. 

Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 3. 

Dudley, Roger, father of Thomas Dudley, 2, 
3 ; connected by birth with Sir Philip Sidney, 

2,3- 

Dudley, Samuel, 4, 58, 467. 

Dudley, Sarah (Keayne and Pacey), 58, 
469. 

Dudley, Thomas, birth of, 1 ; descended from 
the same ancestry as the Duke of Northum- 
berland, 3, 4, 6 ; name of, honored, 8, 9 ; 
more remarkable for life work than ancestry, 

8, 9 ; a Puritan, not interested in ancestry, 

9, 10; parents and childhood of , 10; sister 
of, 10 ; family on side of mother probably 



Puritan, but not thought to have been on 
father's side, 10; a Latin scholar, 11; and 
Mrs. Puefroy, 11 ; associations in England, 
13-18; courteous manners of, 15; was in 
Europe at a very important era , 18; joins the 
army, is made a captain, 17, 19,20; popu- 
lar in youth, 19 ; return to England from the 
war, 23, 24; married to Dorothy Yorke, 24; 
of gentle blood, 25 ; clerk of Judge Nicolls, 
25 ; skillful in drawing legal papers, 25 ; 
was probably with Lord Compton until 
1597,25; in London, 27-30; in service of 
the Earl of Lincoln, 31; Dudley and the 
English statutes in opposition to the loan, 
35 ; stewardship of Earl of Lincoln's estate, 
39, 40 ; conscientious, 40; character with the 
Earl of Lincoln, 40, 41 ; a thorough business 
man, 41 ; secured a match between the Earl 
of Lincoln and Lady Bridget, Countess of 
Lincoln, 42 ; his friends in England, 38, 40, 
50 ; his associations in England, influence 
upon his character, 50-53 ; motives for emi- 
grating, 51 ; considering the separations and 
sacrifices resulting from emigration, 52, 53; 
Dudley and family passengers on the Ar- 
bella, 58 ; his history that of his country, 75, 
91, 425; would not emigrate without the 
charter, 52, 70-75; Dudley and Winthrop 
explore for places to settle, 7S ; Dudley and 
First Church covenant, 80 ; Dudley and fam- 
ily, first winter in Boston, 84 ; constant in 
attendance at church, 91 ; principal founder 
of Cambridge, 95, 123 ; Dudley and Winthrop 
have a disagreement respecting the removal 
by Winthrop of his house from Cambridge, 
96-98, 102, 104, 105 ; Dudley and family set- 
tled at Cambridge, 96 ; military knowledge, 
96, 97 ; character of, has suffered from the 
diary of Winthrop, 97; is said to have re- 
signed his place as assistant in anger to- 
wards Winthrop, 97, 98 ; represented un- 
justly as over-rash, 98, 99 ; thought to have 
been strict with Roger Williams, 99 ; wisdom 
approved, 100 ; champion for the truth, 
100; abuse of, 100; trusty pillar, 100; un- 
just epithets applied to him, 100 ; high 
praise from Winthrop and other contempo- 
raries, 100 ; great forbearance of, 101 ; con- 
sideration as to the propriety of his resigna- 
tion, 101 ; resignation of, 101, 104 ; trades in 
corn criticised by Winthrop, 102 ; house of, 
not extravagant, 103, 104; the peacemaker, 
ioij 104; no charges against, 107; Dudley 
and Winthrop quarrel, 106-110; said to have 
been in passion, 109 ; has the support of 
the mediators, 110-112 ; thrifty, in; falsely 
represented as penurious, in, 135; minis- 
ters sustain Dudley against Winthrop, 112; 
Dudley and the fort at Boston, 113, 114, 
I 55> I S^i Dudley and Winthrop at peace, 
115; possessed a sincere, rugged character, 
115; letter with reference to the sufferings 
of the first winter in Boston, 116; founded 
Cambridge, 123 ; residence of, in Cambridge, 
123, 124; two hundred acres of land in Cam- 
bridge, 133; to exercise prophecy, 134; se- 
vere temper, 135; affectionate, 135; answer 
to Gardiner, 145-149 ; Dudley and the bish- 
ops, 147, 149; Dudley and the descent of 
Christ into hell, 146, 148 ; Dudley and im- 
penetrable minds, 146, 149; not bigoted or 
intolerant, 149; not superstitious, 149; com- 
pared with Winthrop, 150, 194 ; Dudley and 
the cross in the ensign, 150-152 ; controversy 
with Winthrop, 155; overcome by Boston 



478 



INDEX 



faction, 157; absent from Court, 157; emi- 
grates to Ipswich, 158 ; Winthrop and Dud- 
ley, importance of , in the colony, 159; gov- 
ernor, 1634, 160; with the people, 172; 
relation of, to Plymouth misunderstood, 
173-181; Dudley and John Hocking, 173- 
180; letter of, respecting Plymouth, 177, 
179 ; Dudley and Winthrop in the Plymouth 
trouble, 181; as a soldier, 184; never had 
charges made against his administration of 
affairs, 186 ; Dudley and the negative voice, 
189; patience of, 189; governorship of , and 
rotation in office, igo; Dudley and John 
Cotton, 190; entertainment of the Court in 
Cambridge, 192 ; Dudley and the cross in 
the ensign, 193 ; not fanatical, 194 : Endicott 
compared with, 193 ; opinion of Roger Wil- 
liams, 194 ; charge of bigotry in Roger Wil- 
liams case, igS ; bitter things said of, 198 ; 
narrowness and bigotry of, 198; compared 
with Roger Williams, 200 ; courage of, 200 ; 
Dudley and the laws, 202 ; Dudley and fish- 
ing trade, 204; business qualities of, 204; 
severe strictures upon, 207 ; high opinion of 
Harry Vane, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Haynes 
respecting, 209; went to reside in Ipswich 
in 1635,211; wrote no tracts: Massachu- 
setts is his answer and proof of his labor, 
210; vindication of himself, 213, 214; popu- 
lar, 214; loss of Hooker and Haynes sus- 
tained by, 217; obedience to conviction, 
217; ensign on the fort, 217 ; much quoted, 
poetry of, 227 ; Mrs. Hutchinson and Dud- 
ley, 226-232 ; political liberality suggests 
religious liberality, 231 ; lieutenant-colonel, 
233; foreign wars and Dudley, 236; letters 
of, to Winthrop, 236-238 ; Dudley and Lech- 
ford's book, 23S ; George Burdett and Dud- 
ley, 240; deliberation of, 240; Dudley and 
Harvard College, 242 ; generosity of, 246, 
247 ; Dudley and the Roxbury Latin School, 
247 ; Dudley and the construction of the 
laws, 248 ; on the committee for making 
laws, 248 ; Dudley and Winthrop reconciled 
at Concord, 252 ; visit with Winthrop to 
Concord, 251-253 ; home at Roxbury, 256- 
262 ; letter to John Cotton, 257 ; library of, 
259-261 ; most eminent citizen of colonial 
Roxbury, 262 ; mansion destroyed, 262 ; con- 
stantly a magistrate, 263; Dudley and others 
deputed to make a draft of laws, 264 ; law- 
making, 264 ; Dudley and Winthrop com- 
pared, 271 ; governor in 1640, 270, 271 ; 
quotations from contemporaries respecting 
him, 270, 271; approved by Winthrop aiH f 
others, 270, 271 ; Dudley and the ambitious 
ministers, 271; Dudley and Miantonomoh, 
273; farm granted to, at Ipswich, 275 ; se- 
verely blamed for excluding Coddington and 
others in his answer, 276; Dudley and a 
letter of Eaton and others, 276 ; refusal to 
treat with Rhode Island, 276 ; strictures on, 
by Savage, Arnold, and J. A. Doyle, 277, 
278; letter to Winthrop, 279; suit against 
Mr. Howe, 2S0 ; Winthrop and Dudley, first 
in dignity and importance, 209, 2S2 ; resigns, 
281 ; Dudley and Bellingham compared, 
282; strictures on, by Arnold, 284; letter to 
John Woodbridge, 2S7 ; not sordid, 2S9; 
heart-burning of, in 1642, 290; not disap- 
pointed in election, 290; defends the Stand- 
ing Council, 294; literary style of, 297; Dud- 
ley and United Colonies, 298, 299 ; a foremost 
leader, 308 ; Dudley and Miantonomoh, 
314 ; states his conviction to Rev. Mr. 



Rogers, 316; second marriage to Catharine 
Hackburn, 319; Dudley and Winthrop party, 
319; major-general, 325; to receive public 
letters and donations, 326 ; Dudley and ac- 
knowledgment of gifts, 326 ; Dudley and 
Eliot neighbors in Roxbury, 328 ; Winthrop 
party triumph, 328 ; firmness of, 335; tact 
of, 336; Dudley and the English Revolu- 
tion, 340; Dudley and the laws, 340; Dudley 
and the Body of Liberties, 340 ; Nowell, 
Bradstreet, only old assistants, 345 ; commis- 
sioner to Penobscot, 351, 352 ; commissioner 
of United Colonies, 360 ; Dudley and Hook- 
er, friendship of, 361 ; Dudley and Rev. 
Mr. Eliot, friends, 362 ; Dudley and Eliot 
compared, 363 ; outranks Endicott, 373 ; 
deputy governor, 1648, 374 ; Dudley and 
Fenwick, 377 ; Dudley and Pynchon's let- 
ter, 378 ; reliance of Winthrop upon, 379 ; 
Dudley and Winthrop, friendship of, 380, 
381 ; relations of Dudley and Winthrop, 
384; dependence of Winthrop upon, 384; 
tradition respecting last visit to Winthrop 
an error, 386; Dudley and long hair, 387 ; 
commissioner in 1649 for the last time, 389; 
illness of, 3S9; Dudley and the Confedera- 
tion, 389; next to Winthrop, 389; Dudley 
and death of Charles I., 390; governor, 
1650, 393 ; experience of, in America, 393 ; 
Dudley and Isaac Johnson, 394 ; Dudley 
and Bozoun Allen, 396 ; Dudley and Father 
Druillette, 399; testimony of the Court to, 
400 ; letter of Gov. Winslow to, 400 ; signs pe- 
tition to Parliament, 401 ; in office and out, 
411; death of, 417; funeral of, 417; grave 
of, 417; inscription on tomb, 417 ; Dudley 
and contracts, 417; trusty old stud, 417; 
a trusty pillar, 419; children of, 422,453, 
464, 465, 467-469, 472 ; epitaph on, by Anne 
Bradstreet, 422 ; will of, 423 ; Dudley and 
heresy, 423 ; Dudley and Massachusetts in- 
separable, 425; Dudley and the Bible, 430 ; 
character in England and America consid- 
ered, 430; poetry of, and fanatics, 430; 
Dudley and his critics, 430, 431 ; not penu- 
rious, 431 ; good opinions by his contempo- 
raries, 432-435 ; Increase Mathers opinion 
of, 432 ; fame impaired by Joseph Dudley, 
433 ; president of the Confederacy, 435 ; 
name of, left out of the hall of representa- 
tives, 435 ; careless of his fame, 435 ; Dudley 
and Winthrop one in party and in faith, 
435; Dudley and the higher law, 436; to 
public recognition in modern times, 436 ; 
sterling worth of, 436 ; the peer of any 
among the founders, 436 ; family of, distin- 
guished, 462 ; letter of, to Countess of Lin- 
coln, 437. 

Dudley, Mrs. Thomas, death of, at Roxbury, 
Mass., 1643, 317; high praise of, from Win- 
throp and other contemporaries, 317. 

Dudley, Colonel William, tomb of, 417. 

Dunkirkers, 64. 

Dutch, the, in Massachusetts, 299; of New 
Netherland, 374. 

Duties, repeal of, on goods of other colonies, 
394- 

Edge Hill, 12. 

Educated ministry, 415. 

Education in Massachusetts, 255, 329, 353, 
366; ancient and modern ideas of, 411 ; im- 
portance of, 415. 

Elders, the, and Roger Williams, 194. 

Election sermon, 327. 



INDEX 



479 



Elections, change of method, 285. 

Electors, system of tens, 285. 

Eliot, Rev. John, and Dudley, 258 ; Eliot and 
Dudley neighbors in Roxbury, 328 ; anagram 
on Dudley, 329 ; opinion of Gorton, 346 ; 
Dudley and Eliot friends, 362 ; Dudley 
compared with, 363 ; Eliot and long hair, 
388 ; grave of, 421. 

Emigrants, sick from hardships upon arrival, 
77 ; return to England discouraged, 86. 

Emigration from eastern counties to Massa- 
chusetts, 56; from America prevented, 139; 
from England ceased in 1640, 274 ; to Amer- 
ica, 54, 2 so. 

Endicott, John, emigration to America, 56 ; 
Endicott and the cross in the ensign, 152; 
compared with Dudley, 193; Dudley and 
Endicott, 282 ; second to Dudley, 373 ; gov- 
ernor, 387 ; Endicott and the king's colors, 
388 ; Endicott and long hair, 388 ; rash and 
vindictive, 434. 

Enfranchised people, 335. 

England, Church of, in America, 81. 

England, government of Massachusetts in, ab- 
scinded from the charter, 68 ; Puritans in 
America, honest towards, 82; the Botany 
Bay of the colony, 92 ; appealed to, 263. 

English Church and Williams, 136. 

English Revolution felt in America, 289. 

Entertainment, place of, 268. 

Enthusiasts, 219. 

Episcopacy, 342. 

Episcopal Church and the Humble Request, 
60-63. 

Episcopalians and Roger Williams, 136; in 
Massachusetts, 337. 

Epithets, some specimens applied to Dudley, 
100. 

F.ssex faction, 320. 

Estates in care of Dudley, 39. 

Evelyn, John, 18. 

Everett, Edward, touching words respecting 
the early emigration to America, 88. 

Fairfax, Lord Thomas, 50. 

Faith, Confession of, 342, 344. 

Familists, 219. 

Fanatics and Dudley's stanzas, 430. 

Farewell to England of the emigrants, 59. 

Fashion in the dress of women, 254. 

Fashions, laws respecting, 186. 

Fast day brings rain, 270. 

Fasting and prayer, 325. 

Fens of Lincolnshire, 37, 49, 50. 

Fenwick, George, answer to letter of, 283 ; and 

Saybrook, 375 ; and Massachusetts, 378. 
Feudal servitudes, 266. 
Feudal system and New England, 57. 
Feudalism extinguished, 286 ; in church, 338 ; 

in Massachusetts, 393. 
Fidelity, oath of, 414. 
Fiennes, William, Lord Saye and Sele, father 

of Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, 46. 
First Table of the Law and Williams, 136. 
Fishing trade of Massachusetts, 204. 
Fiske, Mr. John, strictures on the Dudley 

name, 7. 
Flemings, influence of, in England, 48. 
Fort in Boston, finishing of, and palisade at 

Cambridge, 113, 155. 
Fort Hill in Boston, 155. 
Fotheringay Castle, 20. 
Franchise, limit of, 120, 121, 317; extreme 

boundary of, 335. 
Fraudulent conveyances, 272. 



Freemen, one hundred and eighteen admitted, 
93 ; cause of anxiety to the government, 93 ; 
by reason of modesty, delegate their powers, 
118; to be church members, 119; become 
suspicious of the governor and assistants, 
128; agitated over Winthrop, 162; impor- 
tant change in the oath of, 164. 

French on the north and east, 350. 

French, the, in Massachusetts, 299. 

Friends arrive in Boston after decease of Dud- 
ley, 434- 

Funeral of Dudley, 417. 

Galileo, 18. 

Gardiner, Sir Christopher, 140, 141, 142, 144; 

answer to the petition of, 145-152. 
General Court, construction of, 93 ; time of, 

fixed, 215; judicial powers taken from, 

255. _ 
Generosity of Dudley, 246, 247. 
Geraldine, wife of the first Earl of Lincoln, 

37- 
Gilbert, St., 36, 37, 43. 
Gilbertines, Order of, 36, 37. 
Goldman, Emma, sent to Massachusetts, 138. 
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 142, 144 ; Lady 

Frances, sister of Earl of Lincoln, 46. 
Gorton, Samuel, and Miantonomoh, 273 ; at 

Pawtuxet, 300 ; religious opinions of, 305, 

306; and Cotton, 305; admirers of, 312; a 

disturber in England, 346 ; allowed to pass 

through Massachusetts, 375. 
Gospel, the, propagating of, in Massachusetts, 

392- 
Gothic art, 21. 
Government of Massachusetts, construction 

of, 93- 
Governor and company, letter to brethren of 

the church, on departure for America, 60. 
Governor, the, and deputy, with assistants, to 

make the laws, 118. 
Grave of Thomas Dudley, 417. 
Graves, Thomas, 79. 

" Great House," the, Charlestown, 79, 80, 91. 
Great Tavern, 79. 
Great Rebellion, 340. 
Grove, Mary, 141, 143. 
Guns, leather, 372. 

Hackburn, Mrs. Catharine, marriage of, 
to Dudley, 319. 

Halberts and swords, persons with, to attend 
the governor, 187. 

Hampden, John, 50; attempted emigration to 
America, 250. 

Harold at the battle of Hastings, and New 
• England, 57. 

Harvard College, founded, 225 ; the Dudley 
family and Harvard College, 243 ; public 
education and Harvard College, 255 ; Dud- 
ley and Harvard College, 286, 297 ; admis- 
sion to, 287; the United Colonies and Har- 
vard College, 326; in Massachusetts, 353; 
assisted 366 ; charter of, in 1650, 394 ; dona- 
tions to, 415. 

Haselrig, Sir Arthur, attempted emigration to 
America, 250. 

Hastings, battle of, and Massachusetts, 57. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, description of Concord 
River, 252. 

Haynes, Hon. John, in the family of Gov- 
ernor Dudley at one time, 124; in Cam- 
bridge, 130, 132 ; emigrates to Connecticut, 
158 ; friend of Dudley, 190 ; high opinion of 
Dudley, 209. 



480 



INDEX 



Henry II., 36. 

Henry IV. of France (Navarre), 3, 20-23. 

Henry VIII., 12, 13 ; Lincolnshire and Henry 
VIII., 48. 

Herbert, George, 18. 

Heresy, Scripture antidote for, 224. 

Heroism of the Puritans, 86. 

Herrick, Robert, 18. 

Higginson, Rev. Francis, 55. 

Higginson, T. W., 125. 

Highways improved, 255; selectmen and high- 
ways, 293. 

Hildersham, Arthur, minister of Dudley, 31. 

Hingham difficulty, 335 ; and Winthrop, 336. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 18. 

Hocking, John, slain at Kennebec, 173; 
Hocking and Dudley, i73-i8i._ 

Hogs, become of interest in securing the friend- 
ship of Winthrop and Dudley, 114; the 
cause of an important revolution, 162, 167, 
168. 

Holland, its influence on Lincolnshire and 
England, 48, 49. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, descended from Dud- 
ley, 8. 

Hooker, Richard, 18. 

Hooker, Rev. Thomas, in the family of Dud- 
ley at one time, 124; first pastor at Cam- 
bridge, 132; antagonistic to Cotton, 156; 
emigration to Connecticut, 158, 188, 210,217 ; 
president of the Cambridge Synod, 223 ; the 
ministry of, 270; influence of, in England, 
343 ; Hooker and Dudley, friendship of, 
361 ; death of, 361. 

Hotels in America, 242. 

Howard, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, 37. 

Howe, Mr., title to a mill, 281. 

Hubbard, Rev. William, eulogy on Dudley, 
422 ; opinion of Dudley, 434. 

Humble Request, 60, 63. 

Humphrey, Lady Susan, sister of Earl of Lin- 
coln, 46. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Ann, 218 ; new heresies, 284. 

Hypocrisie Unmasked, 311. 

Idolatry and Roger Williams, 136. 

Immigration into Massachusetts in 1640, 274. 

Independency in Massachusetts, 338; and 
Presbyterianism, 342. 

Independent spirit in America, 289. 

Indians, not permitted to bear arms, 92 ; to 
christianize, one of the great objects of the 
emigration, 117; care of, in Massachusetts, 
272 ; kindness to, 76, 275 ; the cursed race 
of Ham, 275 ; conspiracy of, 312 ; preaching 
to, 350 ; worship resisted, 357 ; Indians and 
Eliot, 362 ; Indians and the gospel in Mas- 
sachusetts, 392. 

Intemperance in general, 355. 

Intolerance of Dudley, 278. 

Ipswich, Dudley resided there from 1635 to 
1639, 211. 

Ireland, colonization of, from America declined, 
404. 

Irish, prejudice against, 416. 

Ironsides of Cromwell, 50. 

Ivry, battle of, 2, 3. 

James I., 13. 

Jeffrey, Lord, 18. 

Jesuits in Massachusetts, 365 ; in Boston, 399. 

Johnson, Lady Arbella, passenger on the Ar- 
bella, 58 ; on English soil for the last time, 
60 ; in danger at sea, 64, 65 ; death of, 86, 
87 ; Dudley and Lady Johnson, 394. 



Johnson, Edward, 303 ; opinion of Dudley, 
433- 

Johnson, Isaac, and Lady Arbella, 37, 45, 58; 
the largest financial adventurer, 46; John- 
son and Dudley, 49, 53 ; the Humble Re- 
quest, 63 ; would not emigrate without the 
charter, 73 ; First Church covenant, 80, 81 ; 
death of, 86, 87. 

Jones, Margaret, a witch, 382. 

Jonson, Ben, 15, 18. 

Judges, power of, 171. 

Judicial powers changed, 255. 

Judith, Point, in Rhode Island, 414 

Jurisdiction, foreign, 344. 

Jury, trial by, 171, 266. 

Justice, distribution of, 215. 

Keayne, Benjamin, 253, 469. 

Keayne, Captain Robert, commander of An- 
cient and Honorable Artillery in Boston, 
253 ; and the sow, 314. 

Keayne, Mrs. Sarah, 253, 469. 

King Philip of Mount Hope, the successor of 
Miantonomoh in his purposes, 273. 

Kings, anointed, and Dudley, 149. 

Knollys, Rev. Mr., Antinomian, profligacy of, 
220. 

Labor, wages, and prices, 118, 253. 

Land, contracts for, in writing, 416. 

Land, free, and intolerance in Massachusetts, 
272, 273. 

Landholders in Massachusetts, 272. 

La Tour, 350, 351. 

Laud, Archbishop, stirs up English govern- 
ment against Massachusetts, 181; feared 
in Massachusetts, 223 ; Massachusetts and, 
338. 

Law, the First Table of the, 136. 

Law-making, 248, 264 ; books, 371 ; merchant, 
395- 

Laws of a people, indicate their progress, 90, 
395 ; made by governor and assistants, 118; 
positive need of, 202 ; historic importance 
of, 248 ; laws of the colony, how made, 248, 
249; written, need of, 248; general, system 
of, 264; code of, in Massachusetts, 266; the 
first code of, in New England, 320; book of 
1649, 391. 

Lawyers in Massachusetts not popular, 203. 

Learning, advancement of, 415. 

Leather, production of, 296; guns, 372. 

Lechford, Thomas M., 238. 

Lecture to begin at one o'clock, 154. 

Legislation of Puritans in America, 90. 

Legislative power in the hands of the governor 
and assistants, 95. 

Legislature, representative, of Massachusetts, 
its remarkable origin, 128. 

Leisler, Jacob, 455. 

Letter of Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln, 
42, 437; of Dudley to John Cotton, 257; 
Humble Request to English Church, 60-63 ! 
of Sir Richard Saltonstall to Mr. Wilson 
and Mr. Cotton, 24. 

Leyden, John of, 219. 

Liberties, Body of, 203 . 

Libertines, Dudley's opinion of, 228, 423. 

Liberty, new era of, in Massachusetts, 249; 
and the Puritans, 274; in Massachusetts, 393. 

Liberty of thought, but not of action, 230. 

Library of Dudley, 259-261. 

Lincoln, Earl of, family of, 31-42, 46, 47; in 
the Palatinate, 34, 38 ; prisoner in the Tower, 
36. 43- 



INDEX 



Lincoln family and Massachusetts, 45-47. 

Lincoln, fourth Earl, and Dudley, 40, 41. 

Lincoln, Countess of, and Dudley, 42, 77, 437. 

Lincolnshire and Henry VIII., 48. 

Literature in Massachusetts, 353. 

Liturgy, set aside, 81. 

Loans, forced, Charles I., 35. 

Locke, John, 18. 

Long hair in Massachusetts, 387. 

Long Parliament, 274. 

Longfellow, H. W., and Dudley's land, 133. 

Lowell, James Russell, on the narrowness of 
the Puritans, 99; poem respecting Hamp- 
den and Cromwell, 250; free land, free 
thought, in Massachusetts, 273 ; and the in- 
tolerant Puritans, 272. 

Loyalty of the Puritans to the Church of Eng- 
land, 60-64. 

Luther and Antinomians, 222, 232. 

M/caulay, statement of the political condi- 
tion at the close of the French war, 22. 

" Macedonian cry " suggested to the Puri- 
tans, 76. 

Magistrate, Dudley always one, 263. 

Magna Charta, 265. 

Maiden, 78. 

Malefactors may be dissected, 366. 

Manners of Dudley, 15, 180. 

Mansfeld, Count, 34. 

Mansion House, Charlestown, 79. 

Manual training, 370. 

Manufactures in England and the Flemings, 
48; encouraged, 272. 

Marlowe, Christopher, 18. 

Mason, John, closed Pequot war, 218. 

Massachusetts, and family of Lincoln, 45-47 ; 
charter of, granted, 55 ; people, from east- 
ern counties of England, 56 ; charter, trans- 
fer to America considered, 66-75, 145 ; gov- 
ernment of, in England, abscinded from 
the charter, 68 ; founders, honest in their 
use of the first charter, 70, 72, 90; history 
of, that of Dudley, 75-91 ; and Plymouth, 
173-181, 427; early prosperity of , 249 ; sev- 
erance of, early, in spirit from the mother 
country, 295 ; the strongest colony, 1643, 
300, 427 ; and persons outside of her terri- 
tory, 299, 300; controversy with persons in 
Rhode Island, 301 ; and Gorton, 305 ; a 
model in government, 308; foundation of 
her government, 309 ; and English civil war, 
324; and slavery, 330; progress of, 355, 356; 
founders not in search of gold, 356; leader 
in progress, 373, 427, 428 ; in conflict with 
the United Colonies, 375; and Connecticut 
in trouble, 376; and the death of Charles I., 
390 ; and Canada, 399 ; and Dudley insepa- 
rable, 425 ; the monument of Thomas Dud- 
ley, 426 ; her early construction, 426 ; and 
Plymouth compared, 427. 

Masters before the Court for the improper 
treatment of servants, 118. 

Mather, Cotton, opinion of Dudley's letter, 
176 ; and Joseph Dudley, 457. 

Matthews, Marmaduke, false account of, 208 ; 
and his heresy, 395 ; not banished, 395. 

Mayflower, the, 57. 

Medford, 85. 

Medicine, quack, prices of commodities deter- 
mined by the Court, 1 18. 

Merchant, law, 395. 

Miantonomoh, at the home of Dudley, 259, 
273 ; fear of, in Massachusetts, 296 ; Gorton 
and, 305 ; and Uncas, 3 10. 



Midsummer Night's Dream performed in 
London on Sunday, 267. 

Mijitary knowledge of Dudley, 96 ; organiza- 
tion, 233 ; drill of boys, 328. 

Milton, John, 18, 50. 

Ministers, maintenance of, first business in the 
colony, 91 ; not in civil authority, 120 ; de- 
termine who shall be freemen, 120 ; and the 
code, 203; ambition of, and Dudley, 271; 
and the government, 412 ; and political 
power, 427. 

Ministry, educated, 415. 

Mistick, changed to Maiden, 78. 

Money, need of, 272 ; coining of, in Massa- 
chusetts, 413. 

Moral standard of servants, low in many in- 
stances, 118. 

Morals in Massachusetts in 1639, 267. 

More, Sir Thomas, 6, 29. 

Morton, Nathaniel, good opinion of Dudley, 
388, 432, 433. 

Morton, Thomas, 92, 142, 324. 

Munster, fanatics of, 219; and Puritans, 311. 

Musselburgh, victory of, and Earl of Lincoln, 
37- 

Nantes, Edict of, 22. 

Narragansetts, peace with, 334. 

Navarre, Henry of, 3, 20, 22. 

Needles, the, passed by the Arbella, 64. 

Negative voice in legislation, 189, 317,335; 
and the magistrates, 327. 

Netherlands, influence on Lincolnshire and 
England, 48. 

New England's Jonas, 337. 

Newgate in Connecticut, 418. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 18. 

Newtown, approved, 78 ; first intended to be 
the capital, 92 ; chosen for the capital, 1630, 
92, 95, 98; fortified, 1631,96; refuses to help 
on the fort at Boston, 113. 

Nicolls, Augustine, 4, 25, 27, 31 ; character 
and occupation of, 26, 27. 

Nonconformists in the ascendency in Lincoln- 
shire, 39, 45, 48. 

Normans against Saxons in Lincolnshire, 37. 

Northampton, Dudley's residence at, 24. 

Northampton, Earl of, 1 ; Dudley the page of, 
1, 12. 

Norton, Charles Eliot, descended from Dud- 
ley, 8. 

Nova Scotia, civil war in, 286. 

Oath of freemen and suffrage, 164 ; not to be 
tendered to an unregenerate man, Williams, 
194 ; of allegiance to the king, 289 ; of alle- 
giance omits the king, 289, 290. 

Office, disability to hold, very general, 120, 
121 ; rotation in, and Dudley, 161. 

Oldman, John, killed, 217. 

Oligarchy, government not an, 94, 95. 

Ordnance m Boston, moved by Winthrop, 

Oxford, England, influence of, in America, 

191. 
Oxford men in America, 256. 

Pacey, Mrs. Thomas, 469. 

Page, duties of a, 15-17. 

Palatinate, expedition to the, 34, 38. 

Palisade about Newtown (Cambridge) made 
by Dudley, 96, 125 ; at Cambridge and the 
fort in Boston, 114, 155, 156; of Dudley at 
Cambridge, the cause of representative legis- 
lature in Massachusetts, 127, 128, 155. 



Il 



482 



INDEX 



Parent and child, 359. 

Parliament, petition to, 401. 

Patent, 55. 

Pawtuxet and Gorton, 300. 

Peace with the Narragansetts, 334 ; in 1645, 
334- 

Penobscot, 351, 352. 

People, the, how far to be trusted, 93. 

Pepys, Samuel, 18. 

Perjury and Roger Williams, 136, 137. 

Pequot war, 217. 

Pesecus, warlike, 334. 

Pester, Dorothy, leave to marry, 415. 

Peter the Great and lawyers, 203. 

Peter the Hermit and Amiens, 20. 

Peters, Mr., high opinion of Dudley, 209. 

Philip II. of Spain, 21. 

Philip, King, of Mount Hope, the successor 
of Miantonomoh in his purposes, 273. 

Phillips, Wendell, descended from Dudley, 8. 

Piers Plowman, 261. 

Plymouth, Council of, 55. 

Plymouth and Massachusetts, 173-1S1, 427. 

Poetry of Dudley much quoted, 227, 430. 

Politicians and Massachusetts, 320. 

Politics and religion, 358. 

Polygamy is not tolerated, 229. 

Powwow, Indian, 357. 

Prayer and fasting, 325, 416. 

Prayer Book, 81, 342. 

Presbyterianism, 342. 

Presbyterians of Hingham, 338. 

Preston, Dr., influence with the Earl of Lin- 
coln and Dudley, 34, 35, 3S. 

Prices of commodities set at liberty, 153 ; 
wages and labor, 253. 

Priestcraft, worst element in politics, 358. 

Priesthoods and the government, 412. 

Printing press, the, in America, 256 ; at Cam- 
bridge in 1639, 275. 

Prisons, lack of, in America, 200, 418. 

Privy Council, charges before, 144 ; favors 
Massachusetts, 144, 145. 

Prohibitory law, 154. 

Prosperity of Massachusetts, 154, 155, 249. 

Providence, overruling, 326. 

Puefroy, Mrs., and Thomas Dudley, 11. 

Puefroys, connected with Dudleys by mar- 
riage, 11. 

Pumham and Sacononoco against Gorton, 301. 

Punishment in Massachusetts vindictive, 139, 
140. 

Puritan emigration to America of 1630, 54-66 ; 
strictness vindicated, 249. 

Puritans not interested in ancestry, 9, 10 ; in 
England, 39 ; letter of, to their brethren of 
the church on departing, 60-63 i in distress, 
1630, 80; honest towards the Church of Eng- 
land in America, 82; adhere to the English 
Church, 120 ; had little confidence in persons 
without religion, 122 ; in England retained 
there in 1640, 274; not fanatical, 274 ; and 
liberty, 274 ; in Massachusetts, 428, 429. 

Pym, John, 50; attempted emigration to Amer- 
ica, 250. 

Pynchon, William, and Springfield, Mass., 
283 ; Pynchon's book, 398, 406 ; letter of, 
and Indians, 378. 

Pynchon, Mrs. William, death of, 83. 

Quarrel between Winthrop and Dudley, 

97-105, 155, 156. 

Rain produced by fasting, 270. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 18. 



Randolph, Edward, 454. 

Ratcliffe, Philip, punished, 139. 

Records of marriages, births, and deaths, 

255- 
Religion and the state, 119-122, 327, 338,342, 

344, 413; in politics, 358; foundation of the 

state, 359. 
Religious and political freedom, 231 ; stability 

in America, 343. 
Representative government in Massachusetts, 

285. 
Representatives chosen, 93 ; House of, result 

of palisade, 155. 
Request, Humble, and the English Church, 

60-63. 
Revelations, Antinomian, 221. 
Revolution, the, and an earlier one, 183. 
Rhode Island, Dr. John Clarke father of, 

201 ; refusal by Massachusetts to treat with, 

276, 277. 
Richmond Hill, 30. 
Roads improved, 255. 
Rogers, Rev. Ezekiel, 421. 
Rogers, Rev. Nathaniel, kind wor>Is of, re- 
specting Dudley, 261 ; and Dudley, plain 

words, 316; encomium on Dudley, 412. 
Ross, Robert de, 30. 
Roxbury, 85 ; residence of Dudley, 256-262 ; 

Latin school, 259; free school, 329 ; tomb of 

Dudley at, 420. 
Ruskin, John, and the cathedral at Amiens, 

21. 
Russell, Lord William, 29. 

Sabbath -breaking and Roger Williams, 
136. 

Sacononoco, 301. 

Salem, arrival of the Puritans at, 77 ; did not 
please them, 77. 

Saltonstall, Sir Richard, passenger 011 the 
Arbella, 58; would not emigrate without the 
charter, 73 ; and a few others survived, 
8S; fined for absence from Court, 92 ; letter 
to Wilson and Cotton, 241. 

Saltonstall, Richard, and the Council for Life, 
213 ; and Bellingham against the assistants, 
282, 294 ; book of, 293, 294 ; and Bellingham 
against the magistrates in the sow business, 
3i5- 

Satan and the Scriptures, 366. 

Savage, Mr. James, approves of Dudley's 
trades in corn, 102, 103 ; strictures on Dud- 
' e y> 135 ; possible mistake of, 206; his de- 
fense of Winthrop on the use of the word 
Antinomian, 228 ; note of, upon Dudley 
and Miantonomoh, 273 ; and bigotry, 276. 

Saxon kings, graves of, and the emigration to 
America, 57. 

Saxon in the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts, 262 ; at the front, 339. 

Saxons against Normans in Lincolnshire, 37. 

Say and Sele, Lord, daughter of, Countess of 
Lincoln, 42, 46. 

Saybrook, the fort at, 375 ; settlement of, dis- 
pute at, 394. 

Schools, common, 255, 256, 366, 367, 427. 

Scilly Isles and Sir Harry Vane, 65. 

Scots, Mary, Queen of, 20. 

Scriptures, Holy, in Massachusetts, 412. 

Sea, the, overcome in the lowlands of Lin- 
colnshire, 48. 

Seal on Gov. Thomas Dudley's will, 5-7. 

Selden, John, 18. 

Selectmen of Cambridge, 132. 

Selectmen of towns, 266, 293. 



INDEX 



483 



Sempringham, strongly Puritan, 31, 43, 49; 
St. Gilbert and Sempringham, 36-38, 43 ; 
home of the Earl of Lincoln, 36, 45 ; church, 
fir door, 37 ; Roger Williams and Gov. Win- 
throp at, 43. 

Separatists in America, Si. 

Sermon, election, 327. 

Servants, called before the Court for improper 
conduct towards their masters, 118 j domes- 
tic, 333- 

Shakspere a familiar personage, 18, 28. 

Shawmutt, 84. 

Sherman, Mrs., and her sow, 314. 

Shillings, pine-tree, 413. 

Sidney, Algernon, 29. 

Sidney, Sir Henry, 8. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 7, 18 ; death of, at Zutphen, 
3 ; Mrs. Bradstreet's claim of ancestry with, 

3-5- 

Simple Cobler of Aggawam, 320. 

Simsbury copper mines, 418. 

Skelton, Rev. Samuel, 55. 

Slavery, in Massachusetts, 266; African, 330. 

Society for propagating the Gospel in New 
England, 392. 

Society in Cambridge, good, 192. 

Solent, the, and the emigrants, 58. 

Somerset, Lord Protector, 29. 

Soul liberty, an after-thought, 199 ; borrowed 
by Roger Williams, 200 ; in Massachusetts, 
357- 

Southampton, emigration sailed from, 57, 58. 

Speedwell, 57. 

Spencer, Elizabeth, 13 ; John, lord mayor of 
London, 13. 

Spenser, Edmund, 18, 420. 

Spinoza, Benedict, 18. 

Spirit of God, working of, Dudley's letter, 
257- 

Springfield and Westfield, 375. 

Stagg, Captain, in trouble in Boston, 323. 

Standing Council chosen, Dudley a member 
of, 213; and Saltonstall, 294; created for 
Vane, 294 ; in Hingham case, 336. 

Standish, Miles, in Boston, 173-178. 

State and church united, 119. 

State religion, 119, 120, 327, 338, 342, 344, 
413- 

Steele, Richard, and Joseph Dudley, 461. 

Stewardship, Earl of Lincoln's estate, Dud- 
ley's, 39. 

Stones, two great, at Concord, boundary be- 
tween land of Winthrop and Dudley, 251- 
2.S3- 

Strictures on Dudley, 135. 

Stud, in poetry, 417. 

Stuyvesant, Governor Peter, 373, 374. 

Suffolk faction, 320. 

Suffrage oath and conscience, 164. 

Sunday in Massachusetts, 268, 353. 

Swine cause of an important revolution, 162, 
167, 168. 

Synod of Cambridge and the Antinomians, 
223. 

Tasso, Torquato, 18. 

Taxation of Watertown, palisade and Fort 

Hill, 155. 
Taxes, assessment of, 372. 
Temper, severe, of Dudley, 135. 
Temperance crusade, 92. 
Temple Church, 30. 
Temple Gardens, 30. 
Temple, Sir William, 18. 
Thames, Father, 30. 



Thanksgiving, 154 ; in Massachusetts, impor- 
tant one, 1637, 235. 

Theocracy in Massachusetts, none, 412. 

Tobacco not to be bought or sold, 187. 

Toleration, and Dudley, 230; in Massachu- 
setts, 321 ; a limit of, 409. 

Tomb of Dudley, inscription on, 417. 

Torture as punishment, 140. 

Town meeting of New England, Cambridge 
example of, 132. 

Towns, 266; New England, 296; to maintain 
public schools, 367 ; in Massachusetts in 
1647, thirty-three, 373. 

Trade, improvement of, 414. 

Trades, education in, 370. 

Training, manual, 370. 

Trimountain, now Boston, 79, 92. 

" Two Brothers" at Concord, 251-253. 

Tyrel, Walter, and William Rufus, 58. 

Uncas and Miantonomoh, 310; maintains 
lasting peace, 334; death of, 334. 

Underhill, Captain, Antinomian, profligacy of, 
220. 

United Colonies and Antinomian heresy, 222 ; 
Miantonomoh, 273-310; Articles of Confed- 
eration, 298; Gorton, 305; Familism, 354; 
Christianity, 354. 

Universities, English, influence of, in America, 
191. 

Utopia, Sir Thomas More, 6. 

Vane, Sir Harry, and the Scilly Isles, 65 ; 
and Roger Williams, 138; the cross in the 
ensign, 150-152, 193 ; his opinion of Dudley, 
209; chosen governor, 216; ensign on the 
fort, 217 ; a religious dreamer, 224-226; de- 
feated candidate for governor, 1637, 234 ; 
unpopular because an Antinomian, 233, 
234 ; and Winthrop, contrast between, 234 ; 
Standing Council created for, 294. 

Venice of France, Amiens the, 21. 

Vervins, peace of, 22. 

Veto power, 285. 

Vivisection is not tolerated, 229. 

Voice, negative, in legislation, 189. 

Vote, the independent, bought out, 165 ; a 
privilege, not a right, 121. 

Wade, Mrs. Jonathan (Deborah Dudley), 

469. 
Wages determined by law, 91 ; labor and 

prices, 263. 
Wallace, Sir William, 29. 
Waller, Edmund, 18. 
Walton, Izaak, 18. 
War in England, effect of, in New England, 

295- 
Ward, Nathaniel, 265, 285 ; his code, 203; the 

" Body of Liberties," 320. 
Warwick and Pawtuxet relinquished to Mas- 
sachusetts, 394. 
Watches and guards night and day, 372. 
Water, running, thought to be needful for 

health, 80,83, 84. 
Watertown, 85, 155 ; taxation of, and palisade, 

127, 128, 155. 
Webster, Daniel, and Joseph Dudley, 463, 

464. 
Westfield and Springfield, 375. 
Westminster Abbey, 28, 29. 
Westminster Assembly of Divines, 342. 
Westminster Hall, 26-29. 
Whittier, John G., slavery in Massachusetts, 

332- 



484 



INDEX 



Wife not to be struck by husband, 398. 

Wight, Isle of, 58-60; Joseph Dudley, lieu- 
tenant-governor of, 461. 

Will of Thomas Dudley, 423. 

Williams, Roger, and Sempringham, 43 ; ar- 
rival in Boston, 135 ; Williams and the de- 
struction of the ignorant, 137; approves of 
severe punishments, 137; Williams and the 
first Table of the Law, 136, 137; not fond of 
Dudley, 138 ; Emma Goldman, 138 ; briefly 
governor of Rhode Island, 138 ; Williams 
and the cross in the ensign, 152 ; Williams 
and the elders, 194, 195 ; theological dissen- 
sion, 194-201 ; misfortunes of, attributed to 
Dudley, 198 ; ordered out of Massachusetts, 
199 ; record of departure of, 199 ; Williams 
and soul liberty, 200; to be sent to Eng- 
land for lack of prisons, 200; an agitator, 
200 ; not prominent in politics in Provi- 
dence, 200; not a statesman, 201; Williams 
and Miantonomoh, 273 ; against Gorton, 
304; Williams and Indian captives, 313; 
Williams and Chuff, 313 ; in Massachusetts, 
321 ; Williams and the Jesuits, 365. 

Willoughby, Lord, 3. 

Willows in Cambridge, 126. 

Wills, power to make, 272. 

Wilson, Rev. John, and First Church cove- 
nant, 80-83 ; visits England, 134; makes a 
speech against Sir Harry Vane from a tree, 
234; letter from Sir Richard Saltonstall to, 
241. 

Winchester and the emigration to America, 
57- 

Wine sent to the Synod at Cambridge, 365. 

Winslow, Edward, and Gorton, 303 ; valuable 
tracts of, 346; agent in England, instruc- 
tions of, 346-348. 

Winston, Rev. Mr., minister and friend of 
Dudley, 24. 

Winthrop, John, autobiography of, 2 ; Sem- 
pringham, 43 ; first governor of Massachu- 
setts, good opinion of, 56 ; passenger on the 
Arbella, 58; would not emigrate without the 
charter, 72, 73 ; Winthrop and Dudley ex- 
plore for places to settle, 77, 78 ; Winthrop 
and the First Church covenant, 80, 81 ; re- 
moves the frame of his house from Newtown 
to Boston, 96; diary has created a prejudice 
against Dudley, 97 ; Winthrop and Dudley 
have a disagreement respecting the removal 
by Winthrop of his house from Cambridge, 
98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 155, 156; Winthrop 
and Dudley soon become friends, and con- 
tinue to be such, 98 ; arraignment of Dud- 
ley, 101 ; explains the cause of moving his 



house, 104; charges Dudley with adorning 
his house in Cambridge, 104; Winthrop and 
Dudley quarrel, 106- no; claims more au- 
thority than an assistant, 107, 108 ; charged 
with exceeding authority, 109, no; has the 
disapproval of the mediators, 1 10-112; re- 
presented unduly as patriotic and generous, 
in ; mediators sustain Dudley against Win- 
throp, 112 ; gift of hogs to Dudley not ac- 
cepted, 114; Winthrop and Dudley become 
friendly, 115; letter with reference to the 
sufferings of the first winter in Boston, 1 16 ; 
to exercise prophecy, 134 ; Winthrop and 
the cross in the ensign, 150-152 ; compared 
with Dudley, 151, 181, 271, 282,384; thought- 
ful always of his record, 152 ; controversy 
with Dudley, 155; Winthrop and govern- 
ment by the people, 160 ; and one-man gov- 
ernment, 161, 162, 168; political reverse of, 
164; not the entire government of Massa- 
chusetts, 183 ; doubtful course of, in matter 
of Williams, 196, 197 ; directed Williams 
to Rhode Island, 196, 197; "soul liberty" 
no excuse, 206 ; administration of, not ap- 
proved, 206-208 ; Winthrop and Dudley, 
discreditable interview, not proven, 207 j 
Winthrop and Dudley, foremost citizens, 
209 ; Winthrop and the term Antinomian, 
228; visits Concord with Dudley, 251-253; 
letter of Dudley to, 279 ; partial to Boston, 
320; Winthrop and Dudley party triumph, 
328; Winthrop and Dudley, friendship of, 
380, 381 ; superstitions of, 382 ; death of, 
384 ; story of Dudley at his bedside in his 
last illness not true, 386 ; good opinion of 
Thomas Dudley, 432 ; intriguing, 435 ; monu- 
ments to, 435 ; has received more than his 
merited praise, 435; Winthrop and Dudley 
one in party and faith, 435. 

Winthrop, Mrs., death of, 361. 

Winthrop, Robert C, and heart-burnings of 
Dudley, 290; and "Two Brothers," 25-253. 

Witchcraft in Massachusetts, 382. 

Woman, strong-minded, and Mrs. Hutchin- 
son, 223. 

Woodbridge, John, kind letter of Dudley to, 
287; Mrs. John (Mercy Dudley), 468. 

Worship, spiritual, and courts, 120. 

Yarmouth Castle, Isle of Wight, Puritans 

at, 60. 
Yorke, Dorothy, married to Thomas Dudley, 

24- , 

Youth, protection of, 407. 
Zutphen, battle of, 3. 



BLECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO. 

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., V. S. A. 



MAY 9 1399 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



003 744 694 4 



